#Revive ad server

[deus-ex-mona]

gonna start calling them gen retcon from now on bc the lore with ‘em (as we know it) is alllllllllll over the place

[sl-walker]

about the post you created on other archives… could you explain more? how are these websites created? are they linked to ao3? why is decentralised fandom good? genuinely curious! thank you :)

1.) I can try, but it's 2AM where I am, so I can't promise length or coherence!

2.) For my two, I fired up a server running Ubuntu 22.04, installed a WHOLE MOUNTAIN of pre-requsites, configured all those running services (otw-a runs on a LOT of those), installed otw-archive, fired up the archive via Walter's guide in some part. For Ad Astra, this was weeks of work, including one 50 hour week. By the time I deployed CFAA a year later, I had it most of the way there in like-- three days, and hired melo to finish her off and change the CSS. All three of us have offered to help support others who want to try, too!

3.) They're only linked to AO3 in the sense they run on the same software. SqWA is Walter's, superlove is melo's, CFAA and Ad Astra are mine. (Though we've all become friends through this, and we do talk to OTW -- hi James! -- so there's no animosity.)

4.) Before Web2.0 really dug in and before social media, you had a lot of fan communities. Some bigger, some smaller, but all of them were microcosms of fandom. Ad Astra, my Trekfic community, has been here for 15 years; one single fandom, this group of people, some of us have known each other this whole time. The support and the friendship and the collaboration's amazing. Now-- imagine the whole internet filled with these little pools of light. I remember it; I was a member of several myself. But beyond reviving that community spirit, there's also the basic fact that AO3 is down right now, Fanfiction.net's a nightmare (says someone who was one of her columnists once!), and having all of fandom concentrated into just two sites risks losing some very large part of it if a catastrophe happens. Multiple archives are a good thing for everyone, even AO3.

[vasito-de-leche]

;R1999 Vertin's Wheel, Unilogs, Fate and Summoning Analysis

Analysis and theories regarding the suitcase's wheel, unilogs, fate and the process of summoning characters as of the 2.8 patch.

It's been a while since I've written an analysis in this blog, but yesterday I had a sudden realization and after discussing it with the R99 RP server, I decided to properly expand on these ideas in case someone else is interested or can offer more insight!

Just as a heads up, this post will tackle big spoilers from the upcoming CN 2.8 patch!

As usual, the majority transcripts were taken from the R99 Transcript Neocities and the transcript project!

First of all, we must discuss Vertin's suitcase.

By now, everyone probably knows about the way Bluepoch integrates in-game mechanics, items and such as diegetic aspects of the world building--the most known example being Picrasma Candy, an item used by players to recover energy and keep playing, but also a real medicine within the universe of Reverse: 1999 created by Medicine Pocket to enhance an arcanist's own arcanum for a while.

Vertin's suitcase and everything related to it is no different; in the prologue, we see Vertin save Regulus from the "Storm" by taking her into the suitcase, which acts as some sort of pocket dimension with a living space for her team; the Wilderness is also confirmed to be a real space that people can explore, as we see many times throughout the main story and anecdotes; Ms. NewBabel's critter business within the suitcase is also real, being mentioned on advertisements in one of 2.5 Showdown in Chinatown's trails.

In Stage 6 "The Living Past" of the game's prologue, we get introduced to the suitcase proper. This is the only instance we have of Vertin using an incantation to lead Regulus inside the living quarters and Wilderness proper.

Vertin: … Relax, Regulus. I will tell you, but not here. Say this with me … Neirü milde en tiün bonan nokton. Take my hand. Let me take you into the suitcase.

We also get some descriptions of what's inside these living quarters--the majority are various things that Vertin has rescued from previous eras, the most important being the photos and documents about the people she's met across time. She confirms that her suitcase and anything she puts inside can brave the "Storm," and avoid being reversed--we now know that arcanists of all sorts can also do this, a loading screen from the game added during 1.5 "Revival! The Uluru Games" clarifies by stating that humans can enter, but they need to find a "Storm" immune place outside to avoid being reversed. The suitcase is also affected to a degree by external forces--if one were to shake it, the people inside might feel an earthquake. But this also happens on reverse--the seeds Druvis III plants drops inside grow outside of the suitcase and take over the St. Pavlov Foundation's courtyard.

Then we have the spinning wheel and the lake. These two things are introduced immediately after the prologue, in the chapter "In Our Time," Stage 1 "Wretched Brats." We know that Vertin has never been to this part of the Wilderness that holds the lake and the spinning wheel.

The outside scenery keeps changing and changing … What has remained unchanged for ages is the lake and an old spinning wheel. Regulus: *sobs* ... The records ... Don’t nick my records ... Vertin: ...! Her voice doesn’t sound right. I should go and take a look. This is where Vertin has never been.

The lake is said to be surrounded by a mist that causes everyone except Vertin to slowly fall unconscious, and the water of the lake is explicitly rainwater from the "Storm." The spinning wheel has "strange threads" that Vertin describes as two-dimensional and by following this thread, she summons Sonetto into the suitcase.

The line in her hand, technically the line-like thing in her hand which cannot be felt in any way, has gradually formed a path in her sight. And someone is going to be invited over. Spin it as you've done so many times. It's someone familiar. Sonetto: The lake is overflowing. It's cold, just like a flowing line … Wait, where am I?

During the early months of the game, a lot of us assumed that this scene was simply a way to introduce the gacha mechanic in a diegetic way, without truly having an actual impact on the story. And there is also the issue of explaining how could Vertin acquire members from eras outside of the 20th century, such as Charlie, The Fool, Dikke and Nick Bottom, when the main story never take us to their respective eras.

I want to argue that the former statement is not true; the summoning aspect is real within the universe, and that it explains the latter statement, giving a reason for these people to exist within the suitcase. There is already so much that explains game mechanic as diegetic, in-universe aspects that exist, so I don't see why this would be any different!

In 2.8 "Paradise Regained," we get a lot of information that ties in a lot of loose ends and plots set up by previous chapters; this is the patch that confirms Urd is indeed Vertin's mother.

The scene where they find each other is meant to point out the similarities between the two--the cave Urd is in, where the Manus ritual is taking place, also has the same exact mist as both Vertin's suitcase and Apeiron's cave, and it urges Vertin to remember her childhood in SPDM, namely moments in which she interacted with Urd or somehow remembered her but was never able to recognize her as her own mother. A glowing, golden thread, identical to the one that was used to summon Sonetto in the suitcase, leads Vertin to Urd, who has her very own spinning wheel.

The reveal here and all the references in Urd's own character point to the fact that she is, to some extent, fate itself or a weaver of fate. Her namesake comes from Norse Mythology, referencing one of the Norns, one of the three deities that weave the thread of fate and dictate the lives of mortals--Urðr.

Urd explains that, just like Vertin, only she seems to be able to see and sense these golden threads. And she also explains her purpose and calling. Here is my transcript of the spoken dialogue they have, and you can see it here in Merui's stream.

Urd: I will go with you, but not just yet. There is something I must finish, these threads I'm spinning. Vertin: Threads? Urd: Yes. Others don't seem to see them, but I do. It's strange, I don't know what they are but I know how to spin them. Does that sound ridiculous to you? Vertin: Not at all. In fact, I can see them too. But perhaps we should do it together, later when the danger has subsided. Urd: There may not be a later. I must finish this now. Vertin: Why? Is this worth more than your life? Urd: I believe it is. These threads must be spun so the all ruling law may be woven in. That is my purpose, my calling. That is why I was led here. That's why you're here too, is it not? To answer your calling?

Urd's role as the weaver of fate or existence as fate itself was foreshadowed by 6 at the end of Vereinsamt as well, when he talks to one of her many iterations, Ms. Marta.

Marta: I find myself uncertain of which way to go. Would you kindly give me some guidance? 6: The guidance I can offer you is limited, Ms. Marta. I think fate knows its own fate better than anyone.

Urd is aware of her purpose and calling to uphold the concept of fate itself, even if she may not understand it fully. And thus, we can understand that the golden threads being woven in her spinning wheel are the threads of fate--they led Vertin here, after all.

This patch also confirms that Urd was the reason Manus Vindictae's plans failed back in 1999, during the first "Storm," and how they're now using her as a catalyst to fulfill their plan by sabotaging her process of weaving--her spinning wheel above can be seen tainted with the characteristic Manus Vindictae black goo, and they force it to spin, taking the threads of fate into the well where Arcana's heart rests. Compare it to Vertin's own wheel in the suitcase.

This leads us to the following point: Urd guides upholds order through these golden threads, which represent people's fates and lives. Vertin, as her daughter, has a similar ability in relation to the summoning mechanic in-game, which explains why the banners are presented as the spinning of their threads. For example, the Golden Thread banners.

To follow this, I want to point out the other items involved in summoning! For example, the Unilog rabbits--they can come in Decalogs, which is a set of 10 Unilogs, and they can have different variations for the other unique types of banners (Boon of the Water, Promise of the Water, every Limited character banner, etc). But if you pay close attention, you may see that these rabbits contain a golden thread inside.

[UNILOG] The golden rabbit is a well known myth. It spies on people, steals their time, and sometimes even changes their fates. Though it's old, decrepit, and stale, it is unique and indispensable. [DECALOG] The storyteller never thought that golden rabbits could travel in packs. Nobody knows what this might entails, but no one chooses one single rabbit over more of it. [DECATONE] Now you see them, many, many rabbits. They change their appearance, whispering secrets. And you―you know what to do now, don't you?

The fact that they're seemingly made from the same thread of fate discussed before, along with these descriptions talking about stealing time, changing fates and the implication that the one using them--Vertin--knows what to do now, works to explain the gacha aspect as a diegetic feature.

Then, you have drops as a different type of currency--there are two types, Clear and Crystal. These items are explained as the "Storm" raindrops that didn't fully make it upwards before the "Storm" ended, Clear being the raindrops closer to the ground and Crystal being the ones closest to the clouds, hence why the latter are more valuable.

You may turn Crystal drops into Clear drops, and Clear drops into Unilogs, which draws a parallel between the threads of fate and "Storm" rainwater, leading to my next point: If these threads represent an organized and linear fate, "Storm" rainwater is chaotic fate in disarray.

Throughout the game, there is a lot of emphasis on the importance of water. It holds memories and information, the entirety of people's lives and entire eras, both metaphorically and literally. In 2.5, the one thing that remains of Pei City from 1.6 "Notes on Shuori" is one of Yenisei's vials from the river, which is highly coveted by Laplace to study and understand what could've transpired there. Yenisei's own arcanum revolves around the idea that water holds information, and can serve to return home. As mentioned previously, the mist in the Wilderness lake, Aperion's cave and the heart of Antarctica is special--we've seen it urge Vertin to remember, and in 1.4 "Prisoner of the Cave" that very same mist contains the same elements that are immune to the "Storm," Asymmetrical Nuclide R. And, above all, we know that the "Storm" itself takes entire eras away from the linear path of time.

In 2.8, Ulrich concludes that the "Storm" has always meant to be a flood--in 1999, Urd stopped this ritual somehow, and ever since then, every "Storm" has been a failed attempt at flooding the world through this water that will reverse everything to the past.

During Arcana's revival, she summons this very same flood across the entire globe, raising the water level of the entire planet. And the water has the same or even worse effects to the rainwater from the "Storm," as it causes those who touch it to disappear.

Thus, we understand that water is an important aspect of the story, and that this special water from the "Storm"/Flood holds the totality of history and chaos, being related to concepts such as time and space due to the way the "Storm" functions--it absorbs eras and people into it, taking them out of the linear thread of fate.

Hence why a second important aspect of the summoning batters is water. The First Drop of Rain, Abundance of the Water, Invitation from the Water, etc etc. These pictures were taken from the GL Fandom Wiki!

The way Vertin summons people is by weaving the golden thread and throwing Unilogs into the water, as explained by the in-game mail reminding players to use their Decatones before they expire.

All shall return to the waters, to tranquility. Before leaving, don't forget those special little rabbits of yours. Although they may not be able to embark on the next stage of your journey with you, they're more than prepared to jump into the lake.

So you could equate this to Vertin throwing a literal lifeline info the lake of the Wilderness to save and take people from the chaos of history, stealing their time and altering their fate--and because it's "Storm"/Flood water, it's possible to bypass linear timelines, thus reaching characters from beyond the 20th century like Dikke, Nick Bottom, Charlie and The Fool.

There are other details to support this entire theory that I had no idea where to fit in, so they're going here as an extra round!

The Crystal Drops, canonically a much more valuable currency than Crystal Drops, are the currency used to buy different garments--some of these garments are diegetic, meaning that they do exist within the canon of the world (think of Sonetto's free garments that show up throughout the main story, Regulus pilot garment which makes a cameo in 37's anecdote) but some of them are not (6's detective garment from 2.0, we know he doesn't ever leave the island, Voyager's 1.9 garment, or any of the garments from 1.6 as it's physically impossible for any character from Vertin's team to have visited Pei City)

If we remember that drops are "Storm" rainwater and that Crystal drops were closest to the cloud, therefore stronger in their effect, we could explain these non-diegetic garments as Vertin acquiring a glimpse into different or alternate timelines in which these situations are possible. Which would also explain Diggers as a whole, since he's portrayed as his 1.1 "Theft of the Rimet Cup" self as a playable character while his 1.4 garment is actually the canonical fate he suffers in the main story, having joined Manus Vindictae. The only caveat to this is the Grandfather Clock Paradox explained by X and Regulus, which states that it's impossible for two versions of one person to exist at the same time.

Moving on. Unilogs are represented by rabbits, and I'm pretty sure there is no myth regarding golden rabbits that steal time--but Vertin as a character has been officially related to rabbits, like the latest offline masquerade event, or her themes as the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, solidifying her role as the Timekeeper but also someone who also guides others and alters their fate.

Also, Urd, Vertin and Arcana seem to also represent the three Norns of Norse Mythology--as usual, I only had a very surface research reading Wikipedia articles, so if you have more insight on this feel free to correct me. As far as I know, the Norns are tied to three springs or wells scattered in different places, which coincidentally match the three locations in Reverse 1999 that carry the same mist--Vertin's suitcase, Apeiron's cave and the heart of Antarctica, furthering the parallels between these three characters and the concept of fate.

I think that's pretty much everything I wanted to talk about! Thanks to the R99 RP server for hearing me out and fueling my deranged ideas!

[gameboy-mystery-part2]

Rui's bad luck

It's On! Wonder Halloween! - This event's song, potato ni Natte iku, was created by the producer Neru, who ended up being problematic. This didn't affect anything in-game, though, and only peoples' possible opinions on the song and its producer were affected.

Revival my dream - This event had cards for Emu and Nene and a story that many people considered misrepresentation of indigenous cultures, so the event, cards, gacha, outfits, and story never saw the light of day in the Global Server, though the song, Showtime Ruler, stayed in the game due to the only thing "bad" about it being the Japanese YouTube channel's 3DMV and 2DMV upload. And though the 2DMV's release time hasn't passed for the Global Server yet, I'm sure it won't be added.

A Sad Farewell at the Curtain Call - This event's song was created by the producer Pusu, who was later arrested for really bad things. Both the event song, named Donna Ketsumatsu ga Onozomi dai?, and his other song in the game, Asagao no Chiru Koro ni ended up being removed from all servers.

Backlight Lens Flare - This event's song, CYBERPUNK DEAD BOY, has the Manji symbol in its 2DMV, which could be mistaken for another symbol with horrible associations. The developers attempted to edit the 2DMV, like Warera Stain Busters!' was to correct a typo, but due to heavy effect editing, it was unable to be changed and the 2DMV will not be added.

[shikai-the-storyteller]

Realm SMP - The nitty gritty

I listened to Tubbo's rundown of Realm's features in the hour before the server opened, so here's some quotes + timestamps for folks who want to know the nitty gritty details about Realm's functions, tools, weapons, features, and more.

7m - Tubbo says he does have a team he assembled now, and it's costing him "Quite a bit of money."

Tubbo: To put all this together, to assemble the team – 'cuz I have assembled a team for this now – it's costing me a bit of money out the bank. [...] I'm going VERY out of pocket on this project."

10m - He reached out to a lot of his connections from working on Tubnet and got a custom rendered poster commissioned to announce Realm's first event.

Because of his show starting in December, Tubbo was worried he might not be able to give Realm SMP his full time, which is what prompted him to get a team.

13m 20s - The first event, Factions, is a long-form event, so even if a streamer isn't there on the event day (December 8) they can still play in the coming days. The factions won't be like more factions, MMO factions are different from Minecraft factions.

15m 30s - He has 3 events already planned - 2 for December, 1 in the new year

18m - Logs onto the Dev server

Tubbo: The Realm SMP is 100% vanilla, and while that is true in the sense that you can join the server using a vanilla client and it doesn't require any mods to play, there is some slight modifications within the vanilla game. Every single feature I've added to the server is to add to to vanilla features that already exist. It's not to take them away, it's not to make a different way of doing them, it's just to add more to the base game without destroying any already default Minecraft functionality.

20m - Shows off some weapons and tools

20m 50s - Tubbo says there's fancy leather which can be used to craft elytra.

Tubbo: Shoutout Philza! He's been on enough SMPs where he hasn't been able to get an elytra because the End is disabled. So there actually is a crafting recipe based on the elytra, but you have to unlock it based on skills.

21m 20s - Tool recap. Tool quality breakdown: terrible, shoddy, decent, good, great, flawless, masterful, fabled, and legendary. A terrible diamond sword would be worse than a masterful wooden sword.

23m - Skills recap. "Modifiers to my default player."

24m 30s - Skill point every time you level up a power level

32m - Going over custom things added to the server.

36m 30s - Mobs and hostile creatures will get stronger as players get stronger. Power scaling. Takes the highest level of the people in a group.

PVP and combat damage reduced to 10% when attacking with strong weapon.

38m 45s - No classes, wants everyone coming onto the server to be treated like an "average Joe" that can choose their own specifications.

Tubbo: I want them to kind of tailor their own custom class to themselves based on the types of specializations they pick in [different categories.

43m - Lives system clarification. Talks about death saving throws in DND. "If you die, it's equal to you failing a saving throw." If you lose all 3 lives, you'll be banned off the server for 24 hours, your stats are reset. "You are a new character, you are dead."

46m - Tubbo says he's cooking some lore for himself, but he's leaving thing open-ended so players on the server can tell the stories they want to make.

48m 30s - He scrapped the revive system in favor of the 24 hour ban

49m 30s - He encourages streamers to use Aypierre's translation thing for their streams and he's going to see if he can make a custom cheap version of a translator, but it might be a bit shoddy. "Obviously I'll speak and ask Quackity about stuff 'cuz he's the goat when it comes to stuff like that."

50m 30s - Banned items: mending books and mending enchants because it makes all the qualities of the crafts obsolete

51m 20s - Mob farms and other methods of automatically farming combat EXP are massively nerfed and do not work. "You cannot farm XP with farms." Mob farms are allowed, but they won't help much.

52m 30s - Trial chambers are enabled.

52m 50s - AFK farming skill XP is banned – not able to AFK fish or mine cobble gens (?).

54m 20s - He hasn't decided about Totems of Undying yet, but they may be necessary for custom boss fights and events. Totems of Undying don't work like people expect.

55m 20s - He just told members of the server not to be dicks.

55m 45s - Tubbo reiterates that he'll keep working on Realms as long as people want to play on it.

56m 45s - They started development for this server literally 5 days ago, and Tubbo reiterates his appreciation for Tangofrags.

57m 30s - He wants Realms to have a vanilla feeling with a specialized twist.

58m - He wants to add more people in the future, and tells creators "If I didn't respond to your message it's because I forgot! Not because I hate you! Thank you!"

58m 30s - Tubbo says he's hoping to add more people during the second December event

59m 30s - Tubbo says they're a four man army, technically five counting the person who made the event poster.

[coffeegnomee]

Ooooo you wanna tell me about PrinceZam and Lifesteal lore soo bad 👀👀 (I just started s6 and I'm super interested in it lolol)

Just started season 6. oh me oh my. welcome. I wrote a summary a while ago for s3-5, here it is below.

updated to add the eclipse arc too since i glossed over it last time. and added s6 up to october. 8.5k words.

I didn't hold back on any plot twist/spoilers but like, knowing what happened is very very different from watching it unfold so all videos and vods are well worth watching. but this can give a waypoint as many videos are published months (or years) after the events.

s3 zam made an empire to keep spawn from being grieffed, everyone opposed it because he called it the PrinceZam Empire, they killed him, and he agreed to be executed and banned by Red. He came back for the finale in which vitalasy wanted to revive everyone but then banned himself (or got banned i forget) and keeping everyone unbanned became Zam's job(TM) and he resolved to never give up. After 5 (or so) bases in one week that Spoke leaked every time bc he was secretly still teamed with clownpierce, spoke did a dramatic dialogue with Zam on a hill, "why are you trying to save a world people are actively trying to leave". There was a big war which ended in Zam having another dialogue with Spoke where Zam attacked spoke with a stone ax until spoke continually killed him until he was banned. Spoke got him to give up, spoke won. It was awesome. You can watch Zam's vid on it "i was banned for saving this smp" or the finale streams, both are great recap of s3. (both the spoke dialogues happened in the same vod, it's a really easy watch)

s3 was the best season for yt vids imo, i particularly love clown and branzy's videos on the funhouse, casino, cleansing, and finale vids and if you just watch that you get everything. Everyone had good videos if you start searching channels.

s4 ends with the wormhole, a game breaking glitch that Spoke Vi and Ash found (also Subz was there) and used to completely destroy the server. Before all that the server runs as normal, starting slow with the youtube arc where everyone is making their silly random youtube videos. Zam initially wants to go solo but the joins Team Awesome which is commonly just him Mapicc and Ro but also Spoke and Terrain (iirc). There are many fun shenanigans. a spawn prison, the medusa arc. Around the mid season Team Awesome finds a dupe glitch. They dupe endless gear, god apples, and hearts and get into fights where Mapicc and Zam fight together constantly. this is The Dupe War. There are videos on it, but no streams. It ends with them withering the entirety of spawn, completely annihilating it (there's more to the arc but that is important)

During dupe war Zam and Mapicc thought Spoke was betraying them by orchestrating it with Parrot, turns out it was just Spoke who was orchestrating Everything because part of the wormhole glitch required Spoke to socially engineer Parrot into clicking a sign that would give Ash creative mode. When Ash got creative he loaded his hotbar and the Wormhole Barrel(TM) was brought into the game.

That same day Ash started showing the server the exploits (changing the course of the season DRAMATICALLY). Everything that was going on between the dupe war and this moment got put on pause.

What is everything? Well after the Dupe war Mapicc and Ro were planning on keeping duped items in a stash so they would never have to worry about items. Zam realized he Hated That(TM) bc exploits are unfair. So he left the team dramatically, fought them on the nether roof, and perished fantastically. He then retreated to his sanctuary where he built a castle.

Mapicc finds him at that castle the next day and filled with rage at zam betraying him begins The Castle Arc, fantastic arc, well worth watching as vods on Zam's channel. it's the vod after "the end of team awesome" which is also a great vod. Mapicc torments Zam nearly daily while Zam was also repairing spawn with Subz. Subz, as the finale of his spawn cleanup fights Mapicc and Ro who have become the bbegs of the week, he gets exiled. Zam grows a backbone and ALSO fights them, also looses, and then proceeds to die to Ro 13 more times. This is the Stone Sword Incident.

Left on 2 hearts he does a stream with Clown and Branzy which gets him banned by Mapicc because he had paid Clown one heart to be his protection. So Mapicc thought he still had two. they revive zam and he is left on 3 hearts (or was it 1? I forget. mapicc might've taken two of them back after revival) he turns to his only ally on the server, the only person who came and defended him from mapicc during the castle arc: ItzSubz_.

Subz invited him to his team, the Eclipse Federation. What transpires after here is the most beloved arc in all of lifesteal history, from a fandom perspective. I wrote a whole writeup on why it works so well from a story telling perspective that's one of my first posts on my blog. you can use the #gnome rambles tag to find it easier.

What started as a team, protection, safety from Mapicc, two allies who would come on to fight Mapicc and anyone else whom he got to fight on his side (though subz was more active than vi) turned into a nightmare.

After Ash leaked the wormhole items vi and subz quickly dmed him to meet at the base. Vi (iirc) told him to stop stream and delete the vod, which zam did. Unbeknownst to him, subz accidentally hit go live instead of start recording and for the less than 10 minutes he was live, he and vi implicated themselves as the originators of the wormhole glitch. The secret was out.

By the time they made it to the base to meet with zam they decided to tell zam everything, letting him know that they wanted it to have been a good surprise, something exciting that they could all do together. Vi promised that there was a plan for the items, an arc that he wanted to make happen that he had been planning since the very start of the season. I forget exactly how much they told him, but it was not everything.

Faced with Vi's season long plan, and still not knowing What the plan was, only that it was good, zam agreed to go along with it, trusting subz and vi that they knew what they were doing.

Zam, beyond all reason, had found himself on the very team that was behind the new exploit after just having left Team Awesome over exploits.

He asked if chat could know the plan, and vi and subz both agreed they wanted to keep it secret but that zam could ask off stream. Zam being Zam, could never hide something that huge from chat, didn't want to hide something that huge from chat. So he decided to not know, placing all his trust that Vi would tell him what he needed to know and that everything would be okay.

The doom lifted, for a brief time everything was okay again. But soon enough Vi was ready to start phase 1: a bedrock prison at spawn for the tyrants of the server. Zam didn't like that their team would have the power to imprison people, and he didnt like it was bedrock. He tried to communicate that, and vi and subz both assured him they would only put people in that the server as a whole agreed needed to go in. That helped zam for a short time. i dont remember all the meetings super well, but there were many. one time vi told zam they had "amplified" the glitch. another he said they had a bedrock farm in the end. vi was desperate to keep zam on the team because he loved zam and enjoyed his presence and didnt want the team to fall apart. zam at one point committed fully to the plan and killed himself in a hole to show his commitment (vi also jumped down and also died). the next day they made the prison and the day after zam regretted building out of bedrock. he hated exploits. nothing could shake him from the deep-set hatred that this was unfair for the server. he didnt want to ruin vi's plan, but he didn't know if he could continue supporting it.

around and around he went. changing his thoughts based on what vi said, changing based on subz, changing based on chat, changing based on vi. Feeling trapped, seeing no hope in being understood he roamed the server in despair. filled with the weight that the exploits would get worse in phases 2-5 he shouldered the burden without being able to tell anyone.

Beyond anything else he felt completely indebted to subz and loved subz more than anyone. subz had fought for him and protected him from mapicc, he had taken him in and given him hearts and gear to get back on his feet, he was always there ready to log on and help zam fight or save him when jumped.

Around this time there were many conversations with bacon and planet. They had seen some of the exploits, spoke was leaking them slowly since the prison was built, spawning a warden and endermite that could one tap players, using potions that gave you all the effects in the game. pvp was a thing of the past.

Bacon and Planet were investigating, trying to figure out who was pulling the strings and where the plot might go. Pretty quickly they figured out zam knew a lot, but zam wouldn't tell.

When Vi made the prison, they interviewed him, and planet got so upset that all this plot looked to be was a prison that could be used, not even would be used that he immediately started talking to bacon about getting zam to leave eclipse. he had previously been a proponent of zam sticking it out because being in the thick of content is always good on this server even if you don't love the methods. Zam was ready to leave the team but he was wracked with guilt and the fear of being alone again just like he was after betraying team awesome. they invited him to their team if he left, but he was still hesitant. he cared about subz too much to leave.

A few days later zam one again invited Branzy on, knowing that the next day he would have to make a decision about being on eclipse. There was a meeting scheduled about the next phase tomorrow. Spoke turned branzy into a dolphin with a potion and after the shenanigans, zam asked branzy for advice about what he should do. it's one of my favorite stream moments from s4, branzy approaches the lore with great seriousness and helps zam work through his thoughts to figure out what he wants to do. zam doesn't quite make a decision but has many talking points for the meeting, equipped with new metaphors to explain how he's feeling and how he needs vi to promise change, not just do little things that don't mean anything in the big picture.

At the end of the conversation planet joins call and starts asking zam innocent questions. he finds out about the book that vi once showed zam that had the whole wormhole plan, zam says it's in one of the bases, but not which, and he ends stream soon after. But once stream ends he gets curious to reread what vi wrote so he journeys to the base. Upon arrival though he realizes planet and bacon are both in the area. He sees them through the wall and walks into a room he has never seen before filled with barrels. planet and bacon drag him into a call and show him that the room is filled with every exploit and more, things they hadn't seen yet.

Seeing the extent of where the wormhole would go, and supported (or influenced depending on how you look at it) by planet and bacon, zam finally commits to leaving eclipse. he can't be part of this. this is too much. these exploits are far far worse than anything team awesome did.

So the next day he makes his traitor's requiem. He confronts vi, bacon planet and jaron come through the end portal invis and they kill vi, marking zam's departure from the team. Vi is furious zam didn't come to them, that he would betray so callously and kill him so instantly. Subz resignedly accepts that zam never was going to be able to be a part of the team, he was too against exploits.

Wracked with the pain of betrayal and loosing the person he loved deeply even though he had lied to him, Vi started to embrace the wormhole powers. Through a different glitch he was able to fly in survival, and with the one tap potions he tormented planet in the prison, killing him over and over and giving the heart back. but he insisted that he was not going to use the powers to become evil.

over the next days vi would roam the server using exploits, a ghost on the wind debating what to do with his infinite power. bacon and planet and zam got him in a call to talk about how vi was being a villain and they wanted him to give up the exploits. vi refused to see what they were saying.

but then spoke, lead by parrot and mapicc and ro, took a power play and tried chunk banning vi to end the evil on the server. parrot leaked the plan to vi and vi got out, but once again vi was facing the ridicule of the server for something that he wasn't even wanting to be.

So vi gave up the exploits. summoned the whole server to himself and burned all the items in his echest. but the server didnt believe him for a second. they were convinced he had more exploits hidden in the world. they were convinced he was the villain and were angry he wasn't just doing things with it.

but vi was done. spoke (iirc) killed him and after leaving call vi found himself atop the prison, gazing down at the server he loved, the server that hated him. it was over. he threw himself from its height over and over until he was banned.

after the ban, zam was left listless. he had betrayed eclipse because he feared they would be evil, but vi just banned himself off, sealing into the story that he would not be the villain. he couldn't talk to subz, he was too ashamed. so he became a farmer and lived inside subz's floating islands at spawn.

but one day while he was on subz revived vitalasy. zam wasn't invited but he busied himself at his farm, hoping his old teammates might want to talk to him. But something far far worse was about to happen. a ban message rang through chat. subz was killed by vitalasy. subz left the game.

his world shattered. The one person he cared about was gone. gone and he couldn't even talk to him. couldn't tell him how much he regretted betraying them. he needed to revive subz. right. now. he got vi into a call, a bottle of sunshine, sure it was just a mistake, sure subz was not really gone.

But vi was crying. he didn't explain it all to zam, but subz had brought him back on the server to tour him around their bases. filled with grief vi dragged his feet from location to location. eventually subz brought him to his newest base, and in the corner he could see a room filled with signs spelling out depression. lost, alone, a failed team that he had brought together, now split apart. vi immediately realized what subz was about to do. subz brought him to the end and revealed his masterpiece base, and then told vi to kill him. he wasn't capable of reuniting the team while he was alive, maybe in death vi and zam could reconcile. He was determined to have vi kill him. vi refused for an hour until he finally got subz to promise to return when he needed him most. And he banned him.

vi had zam meet him in the end and faced with that innocent smiling idiot's face, vi had almost no words. subz had left him a book telling him his final wish was for them to reconcile and vi begrudgingly decided to let zam in. he showed zam the end base. zam apologized instantly, wanting nothing more than for everything to be all right. but his focus was completely on reviving subz, almost ignoring vi in his desperation to get subz back. two lost birds.

vi explained that subz wanted to be gone and even if they revived him he wouldn't come back. they agree to be teammed again, and i think it's this zam vod or the next time he talks to vi, but within 30 minutes he's regretting saying yes to everything and wondering if it was the wrong thing to reconcile and get back together with vi. so. still good old princezam.

but it was done. they were reconciled. as the wormhole approached zam reconciled with everyone he had wronged.

but he forgot about pangi. in the wake of vi banning himself zam no longer wanted to do a "trap the gods" idea with pangi since the exploits were over. time and again this season zam had preferred his own plan over pangi's and often fought against him even though the two were friends. even though pangi was always there to help zam with his plans. frustrated at being snubbed, pangi took zam through the course they had made together, ending with the void trap they were going to use to lock the exploiters under the bedrock.

zam jumped in willingly, having taken off all his gear so as to not loose it in the void, but pangi had repaired the bedrock with the bedrock they had stolen from ash. pangi gave a great villain speech and trapped zam in bedrock. zam accepted his fate. so full of regret for all his action this season, this was nothing compared to what he felt he deserved.

And zam broke. he entered his mind and confronted all his past selves. his eclipse self tells him he cant just give up and abandon vi again, not after everything. zam thinks he has hurt vi too much to ever be forgiven. his team awesome (i think) self tells him he should just give up and destroy the server instead of wallowing in self pity.

he kills himself with a water bucket (ooc pangi had dropped it to him so he could get out) and decides to talk to both vi and spoke to figure out what side of the wormhole he would be on. vi isn't available. so he speaks to spoke first.

he meets spoke on a hill just like in s3, and asks to join him in ending the server. spoke reveals that he has not just all the exploits, but op. he gives zam creative mode, shows him custom items he coded, transports a whole chunk of the overworld to the end, gets in a console battle with parrot's admin account and wins. spoke is in complete control of the server.

mapicc was already on spoke's side and so once again devotions are together, fighting side by side just like on team awesome.

zam talks to vi next and iirc doesn't tell him he's already joined spoke, he's aware he has a team secret to keep and either way vi says he doesn't have plans for the finale. i actually dont remember when vi finds out zam is on the wormhole side.

over the next week spoke does prep events for the wormhole, involving inactive server members, mapicc and zam corrupt the world (grass to netherack, wood to basalt) with boots spoke coded for them. devotions wonder if spoke will betray them, they dont like that they're just minions and not equals, spoke isnt giving them actual power, just toys and tricks. they promise to end the server together no matter what happens.

the night before the end zam wonders if he's making the wrong decision again, the chatters fan the flames and he works himself up into second guessing everything. spoke might betray him. planet has found out he's on spokes side and hates him. he's messing everything up again. he was so against exploits and now he put himself on the exploit team.

suddenly he realizes chat is the problem. he's trying to make everyone happy, even chat, and he needs to just decide to do what he thinks he should do. and he decides that he wants to end the server as fast as possible so that subz can return in s4. because it's always been about subz.

the day of the wormhole arrives and about 100 other mcyts join the server to kill parrot, planet, bacon, and jaron. earlier spoke had said if they can survive the wormhole he will give up the exploits and they can save the server before ending it. over the next 48 hours they play a protect the president event.

vi revives subz the first day and suddenly zam is faced with the object of his desires back on this server. they have a final terribly tragic conversation where subz is disappointed in zam for joining spoke, zam cant defend himself because he agrees with subz, vi joins and chews zam out for betraying and tells him if he didn't want to play he should have just logged off. vi and subz are on parrot's side and killing people with leftover exploits vi still had. they leave, and zam even more dejected than ever.

planet decides to live the whole event at 3 hearts despite parrot having gathered 100 over the season. right at the end spoke asks both sides for items to ban and eventually hearts get banned, so planet is stuck at 3. in the final moments he almost gets banned but minute (as a guest) has planet kill him to get a heart again (minute's video on the wormhole was actually really good btw), but mapicc catches up to planet and bans him in the last 10 seconds of the event.

spoke, because the players fought so hard, brings everyone to the control room telling them they can choose to save the server or end it. while the server discusses mapicc and zam message each other and decide to jump in both options at once so that the server has to end. there's a final conversation on the grass where vi says this was the ending he wanted.

the long and complicated season is over.

s5 starts slow, Zam is very much done with being the main character and not much happens for about like 5 months. zam takes a full 3 month break from streaming, but when he returns in january he joins Mapicc and Bacon and they invite Jumper and Pentar to make the Abyss. they start breaking bedrock at spawn and getting players to fall into the void. its a fun and long and shenanigan filled arc that takes a deep turn as themes of players leaving the server start setting in. This season rek left before it started and parrot, poafa, mid, subz, and vi all leave mid way through. lifesteal feels like it's crumbling.

After days of fighting, planet gets zam into a call and asks him why the abyss is doing all of this. zam mentions mulitple things but lands on player activity. planet walks to the void hole and says "if the goal is player activity then, in a way i guess you lost" and then jumps into the void. the ban sound pierces the air announcing planet having been on one heart that whole time.

The abyss is mortified. They did like their idea of player activity but planet was right, just killing memebers made them give up. so they concoct a new plan, a week long scavenger hunt for the rest of the server to complete: if they finish the Abyss will stop voiding all of spawn, if they dont spawn will be destroyed. Minute heads up the opposition in the Foundation.

for multiple 9-12 hour streams zam labors at building the freakinator to destroy 5 layers of bedrock. mapicc joins him most often, usually just sitting in call to keep him company but being there nonetheless. Jumper and Pentar start helping more once the scavenger hunt really starts while bacon joins call to work on the clues. many fun hours of banter and laughter fill the air.

jumper pentar and mapicc take valorant breaks much to zams embitterment. jumper accidentally gets pentar to fall into the void with multiple skulkers of pistons, enraging zam. zam and jumper both are filled with excitement at the future making all of spawn into parkour civilization.

the whole arc zam has to face the concept that he cares more about this project than anyone else on the team, even though the abyss wasn't originally his idea. he has to fight constantly to battle the bitter voices that tell him they don't care about him and are bad teammates. only mapicc stays in the positive light. everyone else drains resources and falls into the void with the pistons he spent hours crafting.

As the scavenger hunt continues (oh day one of the scavenger hunt wemmbu demands 50 hearts or he will orbital strike spawn. foundation and abyss join together to unite the server in stopping him. spoke leaks the orbital coords he got bc he is owner to ash and the foundation take the win at being the one to destroy the canon and spawn trap wemmbu to 2 hearts. though the shot still went off and a large portion of spawn got destroyed despite the server trying to waterlog everything)

the foundation runs through clues faster than the abyss thought they would, so bacon adds some extra steps at the end. minute gets frustrated and decides to log on before the final session starts to try and finish the hunt. zam is planning on breaking the first bedrock to void at 3pm and minute wants to beat him to it.

despite everything, in a mad rush right at the end, the foundation gets the final clue at 2:55pm. they are to give the abyss one task of their choosing. they are in control. they decide the abyss members should die to the void once and never break bedrock again. The players jumped into the void.

But what nobody saw coming, or none dared imagine even when there were signs, was Jumper was secretly on the Foundation's side and leaked the scavenger hunt answers whenever the Foundation got stuck.

All the work, all those pistons, stopped in an instant. The betrayal was one of the most insane things to happen on lifesteal ever. three months of deep cover. actively helping the team. dreaming of parkour civilization together. multiple trust tests and steadfast dedication promised. all lies.

Mapicc immediately tries to kill her, Zam helps but both give up as Minute defends Jumper and both fight them back. There is no resolution to the betrayal. (Clown's video of this arc covers the whole Foundation side and is great)

Mapicc vows to destroy her life, Bacon agrees, Zam is down with it. Leaving Pentar to have the difficult choice: stay on the team and destroy the only member he knew before joining the server, or leave. He leaves. Later he joins Jumper and Minute as a team

Mapicc and Zam try fighting Minute and Jumper over and over but fail again and again.

The Presidency Arc begins, the server elects one person to get legal exploits basically: changing three things about the server. 4C and Reddoons together win, disappointing Mapicc and Zam greatly as red and 4c were extremely inactive and only wanted CaptainSparklez on for one event, removed the heart recipe, and had a third thing so forgettable i dont remember it and it didnt happen.

Basically they stalled out the already stalled progression of the server. Nobody was doing any big arcs since the abyss weeks before, the last arc was soundly destroyed by betrayal and no revenge was possible bc Minute and Jumper were just slightly better pvpers than Mapicc and Zam.

With the captainsparklez event on the horizon, Zam being lower on hearts, and having just died to Minute and Jumper in a fight where he semi-illegally restocked, was called into the principle's office with Ash (owner of s5 with spoke). Ash told him off, and then was reminded that he didn't remove heart crafting recipe, so he did that and told Zam to just kill 4C and Mid if he wanted more hearts.

Once again Ash is changing the trajectory of the server. Zam goes into a moral quandary bc he's kind of evil this season but is he THAT evil to kill two non-pvpers? While they're building? In the middle of the debate Ash logs on again and /msg him why they're still alive. So Zam kills 4c. He feels awful and spirals and goes to his and Pangi's base to think, but upon seeing their bed, realizes he could just farm Pangi off the server. Or just take half his hearts. The idea is so horrible, the depths of darkness so great, that he just starts laughing. and laughing. and laughing. (vod: "an agent of chaos is born")

So begins Zam's Joker arc, incredibly relevant to s6. Throughout the Abyss, Minute had been calling himself batman, and thus became the fixation of the Joker arc.

The presidency had also passed to Minute who had run saying he would do pvp style events but then just added the aether, changed the kit, and added the Blaze and Caves achievement race (BAC). And he was already talking about ending the server in peace.

This upset Mapicc Bacon and Zam, who had become The Players by this time. After consulting with Spoke (bc he always ends the server), they came up with a plan to break up all the teams. Mapicc started reaching out to Clown and Leo to see if they would betray the PMC, their team with Minute. And they came up with the plan to try and steal the presidency from Minute after his term was up (3 weeks, 3 changes) and use it to make the server hardcore, thinking they would finally be able to kill Minute and Jumper.

Zam full on went onto his Joker arc, blowing up builds, having people choose to blow up builds, fight each other, and a host of other Joker inspired moral dilemmas. minute told zam that the reason he wanted to join lifesteal was because he looked up to him for his s3 heroism. (vod: "murder chicken machine") Jumper also had a great yap session with zam at this time ("your president doesn't care about you")

Zam's main tactic was taking all his armor off in front of minute and jumper, taunting them to kill him and break their peaceful ending. If they wanted him to stop destroying the server they could just kill him.

But they refused. over and over.

Then the Blaze and Caves event happened, Minute's final presidency event. whoever got the most achievements from the 900 or so new ones would get a heart cap of 30. Zam being Zam loves small tasks and went on a week of 12 hour streams to get them all, stopping all Joker activities.

In this week Mapicc made fun of Minute for not just killing Zam and over the course of the conversation Minute agreed to bet the presidency bc Mapicc implied that they were just opposing Minute bc Minute stole the presidency from Mapicc bc the vote was rigged after the CaptainSparlez event. If Mapicc could get the majority of the server to vote him out, he would step down.

Wemmbu approached Mapicc and I forget who suggested it first but what came out of it was Wemmbu would pay everyone who voted for him $500, Mapicc wanted Wemmbu to get the presidency bc he thought more people would vote for Wemmbu over him, and then proceeded to convince everyone on the server to vote against minute within like a 2 hour span. (you can watch the entire thing go down live on Zam's vod. it was incredible)

Minute was completely cooked. The presidency was ripped out from under him, Clown and Leo voted against him, everything was rigged from the start while he still believed the server would vote for what was right, not what was interesting, and definitely not for irl money.

Minute's vod "meet the yappers" is a vod of all time.

That Saturday the BAC achievement race was finished and Zam got 30 hearts, Pentar came in second and got 25.

The server got turned to hardcore, and the Players accidentally killed Bacon with an arrow cannon like 5 minutes into it that they were planning on using on the whole server.

With the presidency gone, Pentar, Minute (Brandon), Ash, and Jumper became officially PB(And)J and gave up being the nice guys. They were still self-proclaimed the good guys and they still wanted peace, they just had to kill a few people and then there would be peace on lifesteal.

So they, all four of them, jumped Zam and killed him in a couple minutes flat when zam had threatened to blow up the vitalasy hole, Vi's last place on the server before leaving. It was the classic Joker threat, but he went to actually do it bc Ash was being extra obnoxious in the call. And then got instantly murdered. and Zam was banned.

Then like a week later (iirc?) Jumper asked Mapicc on to talk, she told him she regretted betraying the Abyss, that pb&j wanted to kill people and she just wanted the server to end in peace, and that she wanted Mapicc to kill and ban her so she could end her season on her terms.

It was a trap. Minute shot Mapicc with an arrow cannon. Killing him instantly.

They then got Wemmbu on and used their presidency power that was left over to cancel out his presidency power of immortality (it was just as confusing as that sounds) and killed him instantly.

Wemmbu didn't like that(TM) so he changed the tnt damage to 100 and dropped a nuke on them instantly killing Jumper Ash and Pentar. But that was unfair(TM) (and he lagged the server illegally to do it) so it was undone.

As a result Zam borrowed Pangi's account and Mapic borrowed Spoke's and they were back on to oppose this peaceful ending. Clown and Ro also locked in and were super active in the finale.

Wemmbu's next presidency thing (this was before they killed him. whatever. time moved weirdly in the finale) was the blessings and curses, Zam was pretty much emotionally done with the server, so in a final act of GayJoker flare, blessed Minute with fire res (which was useless bc Minute had 64 notch apples).

Mapicc and Clown were Not Happy with this, Mapicc took it as a betrayal, which upset Zam a lot because his whole thing this season was not betraying his team bc that's all he did s4. So he locked in for the finale. Pangi's account accidentally got banned, so he borrowed Spepticle's account.

Minute and co were not logging on a lot, even though they had a whole meeting about them playing at least a couple of hours a day so The Players could actually try and ban them and it would be a real finale event. Mapicc pulled out Salty Mode and once again got Minute to cave and Jumper and Pentar logged on and they did a 4v3. Clown out general'ed Minute and Minute got banned and Pentar got banned. Speptical logged onto his account to kick Zam off mid fight which was a delightfully great bit of possession control.

Jumper had to survive two days and got Squiddo and Ash to help, the three of them tried chunk banning Clown and Ro and Mapicc (zam got banned by clown so they couldnt use Spep's account to get Mintue back on). Mapicc died bc Squiddo made a mod to tap into Wemmbu's mod from his presidency and she nuked him and he died from an elytra glitch.

Eventually the next day Jumper and co chunk banned everyone, but clown and Ro walked out of it bc you can join and move a bit before you get kicked. Jumper elected to stay canonically in the ban and give up, even though they let the ban despawn by accident and she could log on. She conceded the event.

Everyone went to Branzy's carnival which had been happening in parallel to all of this the past couple months. They celebrate his final moments on lifesteal, and bid adieu to one of lifesteal's most beloved members. He won't be joining season 6.

And then we have s6.

Zam starts the season deciding to never kill a player again. he will just build peacefully at spawn, swearing off violence in the wake of his violence in the joker arc and s5 in general.

within 9 days he is killed by pentar on bacon's suggestion, killed by mapicc 3 times in a row, killed by bacon and planet's trap which they pulled to stop leo from killing him, along with a host of other small moments that almost make zam break.

on the 9th day he tries building a shulker farm for hours and hours. pangi bothers him throughout the whole process and he shoots him with his bow to get him to go away over and over. in a bout of frustration over the farm not working he builds a closet to lock the spirit of the joker in. he tells bacon about the closet and how he has terrible nightmares and the demon in his closet tells him to kill people. eventually he gives up on the farm but later that night he logs on to mess with bacon more. bacon and planet manage to piss him off within a couple of minutes and he again starts using his bow to shoot at them in petty frustration.

but planet takes off all his armor and takes an arrow to the head, popping like a grape. zam got his first kill.

that night he stalks spepticle and is menacing in the distance. he tells spep he wont remember this when he wakes up but spep will.

the next day he's in agony over what he has done. pangi comforts him and tells him its not his fault. zam builds a tree and writes his first oath, swearing to never crit or bow at players ever again.

satisfied that he's learning to control his bloodlust he decides to try and get to 20 hearts from building because mapicc asks him to build him a castle. the next day flame asks him to build him a volcano for 3 hearts which makes him raise the price on mapicc's castle also up to 3 hearts (after two conversations)

at the same time squiddo, 4c, and cube run the peace trials to decide who they will give the mace to. eventually they choose clown because he put his all into it.

as time continues more and more people choose to follow zam in pacifism. woogie swears off violence after mane blows up their base and red kills kab. kab swears off violence after going in a box for a week to process red killing her. pangi swears off violence so people feel comfortable coming to his recording events. zam hates that people are copying him. it was never about making lifesteal peaceful, it was about his own bloodlust.

one day flame comes to spawn during session asking for a 10v1 fight. everyone thinks there has to be a trap, but he denies it. mapicc starts getting people involved for the fight and they get about 5-6 people because zam woogie and pangi all refuse bc pacifism and terrain never pvps and has no gear.

right at the end zam decides to let go of his oath for a day to participate in the fight so flame can do his idea. he wont kill flame but he will crit him. but flame decides there's not enough players and he hears that rek and others will just run if they get low and flame wants to kill them all, not end in running. so he cancels the fight to plan it another day.

everyone disperses and logs off but a bit later wemmbu calls zam back to spawn so he can watch them blow it up. flame is destroying builds to piss off the players so they will want to fight him. zam is horrified and gives himself up as a fight so flame will stop. flame and wemmbu kill him and keep blowing it up because it was never the point. they want a 10v1 not a princezam alone.

flame burns down zam's tree and as the fire consumes the tree zam can only helplessly look on while flame and wemmbu mock him in vc.

Zam almost breaks. But pangi logs on right after and he suddenly realizes he can rebuild spawn over and over from a schematic and nothing is bad at all. Skipping away he starts gaia's hand, a group of players who will help him rebuild spawn and fight flame. He's afraid of getting so involved and so close to fighting because it might make him slip up and break, but if flame burning his tree couldn't make him change he didn't think anything could.

pangi takes it upon himself to talk to flame, giving him lite therapy to get him to see that people take time to build and building is enjoyable by building a house with him. flame begrudgingly builds the house thinking it's dumb the whole time. but pangi gets him to agree to not blow up spawn anymore and pagni will organize flame's fight for him. but minutes later wemmbu logs on and starts blowing up mapicc's castle. pangi is helpless to stop him because of his pacifism and he's pissed that flame can't control his teammates. he leaves telling flame to stop wemmbu or the fight is off. minutes later again flame calls him back to the house they built and wemmbu has blown it up. flame is completely dejected and feels like he cant stop wemmbu and also that it isn't his problem to fix. pangi gives him one final chance, but he's at the end of his rope. but they leave agreeing to get flame the fight.

zam gets into mccr and leaves the server for this week to practice, during his absence the fight happens, but right as the 10 people stand together in a pre-fight pep talk mapicc and spoke tnt minecart the whole circle, killing everyone. the players are pissed and refuse to fight again. mapicc says its because wemmbu blew up his castle, and that flame needs to kill wemmbu and he can have his fight. mapicc and wemmbu end up fighting and bc mapicc was on his phone hotspot he starts to loose so he runs from the fight. in retaliation the server griefs his castle, enemies and friends together.

after the cart incident zam logs on to get updated, pangi and mapicc both hate how flame is bullying the server into getting his fight and they promise to stop flame.

in the ashes of his tree, zam no longer has an oath, so he writes a new one that focuses on refusing to kill and refusing to use violence to solve his problems. he's emboldened by his idea to rebuild spawn over and over whenever flame destroys it, convinced he will outlast him.

flame logs on and zam gets him to admit he can't control wemmbu and also cant betray wemmbu bc wemmbu has something over him that will ruin him. zam this time promises to get flame his fight if he can convince wemmbu to stop blowing up spawn. he logs off to win mccr the following weekend, and the day he returns flame has decided to do his fight during session and uses 1000 dogs to aid him.

also while he was gone kab killed planet twice, almost banning him but then gave back the hearts.

zam is left listless, there is nobody to fight. he builds a field of daisies to frolic in. he doesn't know what he will do. where his journey will take him. but for now he's content. he has completely become the pacifist.

days later mapicc calls him to his castle and reveals that he's been stalking him for months and trying to get him to break and start killing. it has obviously been unsuccessful. at one point about a month before he had taken off his armor and started attacking zam and zam still refused to hit him, only doing it accidentally before running away and getting out. mapicc offers him hearts if he kills him and zam easily refuses. they end the arc teammates rather than enemies.

with nothing going on in the server, bacon decides that while mapicc prefers having zam as a friend, he prefers having zam as an enemy and so he choses to join wemmbu to help guide him to do more interesting arcs. wemmbu takes him in and same day kab leaks spep's location and wemmbu kills spep with bacon in tow and the team starts to form.

that same day bacon starts training kab to learn to escape fights, during it kab sets her bed in front of him. a little later mane logs on and kills kab bc they have a feud going on since the start of the season, and then finds that bed and kills her again. kab immediately thinks bacon betrayed her and sends hannah after him to kill him, he dies in one hit because he's on 4 hearts and then dies again trying to get his stuff back and is overall rather pissed at kab and hannah because he didn't leak the bed. they get wemmbu on and update him and bacon refuses to team if kab doesn't give the heart back. it ends unresolved but a couple days later kab gives bacon the hearts and the california girls becomes a team (name will come later).

zam thinks bacon is being fishy so he investigates him but wemmbu leaks pretty quickly that they're a team. but then wemmbu gets hannah to kill poafa at spawn twice and zam can do nothing but watch and give poafa two of his own hearts. he's left with nothing to do and no ideas of how to fight wemmbu without fighting.

mapicc drops his stalking video and then dies to wemmbu in a 1v1 and zam logs on in time to see him die. bc of both things he's sent into a reflection turmoil over who he is on this server. mapicc has got him feeling like the team awesome days and it scares him. who do the players on the server view him as? he realizes independence was nice, but it's also isolating and he's all alone. he resolves to find teammates. but even so he doesn't have options he likes at all.

then one day bacon revives planet, and wemmbu kills planet twice and all the members of the server are too afraid of wemmbu to attack him and protect planet. zam is crushed but still doesn't know what to do. he gives planet hearts from his own hotbar, but he's running low and he vowed to not kill and he doesn't want to slip and go down a route that will make him evil again.

then while musing over ideas he flies to spawn and sees derap and mid, touching down he intends to chat, but derap kills mid, banning her instantly. horrified zam asks him why but derap just says it's because there were no repercussions to his actions. that word sticks in zam's brain and he realizes wemmbu has never had to face any sort of repercussions for his actions.

bacon and mapicc log on and zam shares his realization and him and mapicc decide to use zam as bait to get wemmbu into a fight where mapicc and spoke can kill wemmbu with zam as support (not using strength). they get the fight, flame joins in, but mapicc and spoke both die and zam gets out. zam, in post fight talking with chat admits that he's felt more happy while fighting than he has most of the season. he starts to very seriously consider changing his oath to allow fighting, but he doesn't want to do it by his own choice so he asks poafa and kab on.

the poafa conversation is very dear to me, zam admits that the whole reason he did pacifism was because of the "chicken murder machine" conversation with minute s5 where minute said he was inspired by zam s3. Zam has been wanting to reconnect with who he was in season 3 so he swore off fighting and vowed to protect the server at all costs. poafa gently helps him see he's not fighting on fair ground and it wouldn't be bad to fight. that he is capable of looking at the reasons he's fighting and choosing to not go too far.

he talks to kab, and feels good enough to choose a new title, pacifism never fit, but first derap comes back asking what the heck happened because he saw the mapicc and spoke death messages and zam and mapiccs banter with flame after the fight so he knows zam fought. zam admits what he said earlier changed everything and that he is going to fight from now on.

after derap leaves he writes a third oath, this one labeling him a protector of spawn, and collects a sword "galaxia, the protector sword" plus a bunch of strength pots from a barrel right by leo's void hole that he has stashed a couple of days ago as he thought over this arc change. (this is the vod PRIDE)

that brings it to 10/15/24

since then there's been small things that may or may not be relevant as the season continues to unfold. zam is still in his protector arc. mane has taken up the mantle of destroying spawn. a couple weekends ago there was a massive battle for spawn trying to kill mane once so he would stop. it all failed. minute became a legend for trying to 1v1 mane and lost but maybe won the ideological battle. mapicc's team built an orbital cannon to use against mane and involved zam. devotions have had incredible lore. kab is doing something with zam that who knows how will end. derap is doing lore with zam.

we are firmly in the mid season where all early things matter and we're establishing all the relationships that will matter for the end of season lore. and this mane spawn destruction may very well be the mid season economic miracle like the cleansing, dupe war, and abyss were in previous seasons. We'll see if anyone does anything bigger after him. Seasons usually end around may/june so there's still plenty of time to go unless they decide to go rogue.

[cyberpunkonline]

THE AESTHETICS OF ABANDONWARE: WHY DEAD SOFTWARE FEELS HOLY

By R A Z, Queen of Glitches, Rat Prophet of the Post-Crash Pixel-Chapel

INTRO: Oi, you ever boot up a DOSBox emulator and feel your soul whisper "Amen"? No? Then saddle up, you absolute fetus, 'cause we’re going full pilgrimage through the haunted cathedrals of dead code, cursed shareware, and disc rot salvation. This is for the ones who dream in .BMPs, weep in MIDI, and hit “Yes to All” when copying cracked ZIPs from forgotten FTPs at 3AM. Abandonware ain’t just nostalgia—it’s digital necromancy. And some of us are bloody good at it.

DEAD SOFTWARE = HOLY SHRINE

Let’s be clear: abandonware is software that’s been, well, abandoned. The devs moved on. The publisher collapsed in a puff of VC smoke. The website's now a spammy shell selling beard oil or crack cocaine. The software? Unupdated. Unsupported. Gloriously obsolete.

So why does launching Hover! or Starship Titanic in 2025 feel like entering a chapel with weird lighting and a dial-up modem choir?

Because it’s sacred, mate.

We’re not talking about the games themselves being perfect. A lot of them were janky as hell. We’re talking vibe. These programs exist outside capitalism now. They’re post-market. Post-hype. They don’t want your money, your updates, your logins. They just want your attention—pure and simple. You’re not a user anymore. You’re a curator. A digital monk brushing dust off EXEs and praying to the Gods of IRQ Conflicts and SoundBlaster settings.

WHY IT HITS DIFFERENT

Dead software doesn’t update. It doesn’t push patches or ads. It won’t ask you to connect your Google account to play Math Blaster. It’s a sealed time capsule. Booting it up is like receiving an artifact from a parallel dimension where the internet still had webrings and every kid thought Quake mods would lead to a dream job at ID Software.

But it also represents a lost sincerity. These weren’t games made to hook you for eternity with algorithms. These were games made by six dudes in a shed with a caffeine problem and one working CD burner. And their README files were poetry. Half of them end with “Contact us on AOL or send a floppy to our PO Box.” What do you mean you don’t know what a PO Box is?

FOR THE ZOOMIES: YOU JUST MISSED THE GOLDEN ROT

Listen up, juniors. If you were born after 2005, you missed the age when the internet was held together with chewing gum, JPEG artifacts, and unspoken respect.

Back then, finding a rare game was an adventure. Not an algorithm. You didn’t scroll TikTok and get spoon-fed vibes. You climbed through broken Geocities links and begged on IRC channels. You learned to read. You learned to search. You learned that “No-CD crack” doesn’t mean what your mum thinks it means.

So here’s your initiation: go download something weird from a forgotten archive. No guides. No Discord server. Just the raw, terrifying joy of not knowing if you’ve just installed Robot Workshop Deluxe or a Russian trojan. Welcome to the cult.

THE TWO-YEAR RULE

Online communities? They’re mayflies with usernames. Peak lifespan? Two years.

Here’s the cycle:

A niche game/tool/art style gets revived.

People form a forum/Reddit/Discord.

A zine or remix scene emerges.

Drama. Mods quit. Someone forks the project.

Everyone vanishes.

This cycle has always existed. The only difference now is that it’s faster. But dead software bypasses this. It’s post-community. You don’t have to join a scene. You are the scene. Every time you open it up, you’re plugging into a ghost socket. You’re chatting with echoes. It’s beautiful.

CONCLUSION: THIS IS A RELIGION NOW. PRACTICE IT.

Abandonware isn’t about gaming. It’s about reclaiming reverence. About saying “This mattered” even if no one else remembers it did. It’s about surfing the ruins, not for loot, but for meaning. There’s holiness in opening a program that hasn’t been touched in decades and seeing it still works. Still waits for you. Still loads that same intro MIDI with the confidence of a god.

So light a candle. Install a CRT filter. Screenshot that low-res menu and print it on a t-shirt. You’re not just playing with the past. You’re preserving the bones of the digital age.

See you in the BIOS, kids.

—

RAZ out.

[helsaweekmasterlist]

☀️ Helsa "It's Summer! DTIYS 2025" event ☀️

Header by Yuzu, a talented member of our Helsa Discord server, who drew this beautiful art!

Our little town of Helsa (@helsadiscord) is excited to revive our It's Summer! 2025 event for all shippers!

This 1 June 2025 - 23 September 2025, we invite you to participate in a Draw This in Your Style (DTIYS) collaboration!

🌻🌼🌷

When posting your work, please:

Reblog this post and keep the chain going by adding on from the latest submission

@helsaweekmasterlist

Tag #Helsa It's Summer 2025 and/or #HelsaIt'sSummer2025 and/or #HelsaIt'sSummer

Tag #Draw This In Your Style and/or #DTIYS

🪻🌹🌸

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask :) Have fun and Happy Summer!

[blues824]

Hello I've seen that you have been getting a lot of requests

But could I request : twst housewardens with nico di angelo/reader, that reader tells them that they're son/daughter of hades and their power? And maybe the battle of labyrinth(feel free to ignore ☺)

Gender-neutral reader (male reader-coded, but anyone can read as there are no gender-specific terms used). English Server player here, btw.

Riddle Rosehearts

You were the only one possibly in the entirety of Twisted Wonderland who could revive the dead… even if they were to do your bidding. Yeah, he was definitely freaked out when you cracked the ground open and made a bunch of cadavers and skeletons attack him while he was overblotting.

Riddle can tell that you have been through a lot of pain. He did not know the extent of that pain until he saw you at the fountain, throwing in a drachma and conversing with your sister’s ghost. You only had one tear slip down your face when you noticed that the tyrannical housewarden was watching. You quickly recovered before using the shadows to travel back to Ramshackle.

It wasn’t until later where he learned about your backstory, and holy shit have you gone through a lot. Chronologically, you were 82, but you had the physical appearance of a 15 year old. You were physically younger than he was. You told him that it was because you spent 70 years in a casino, but this just managed to confuse him more.

Anyways, you first came off to him as rude and distant, which he could understand because you ended up in Twisted Wonderland. You first thought you were hallucinating or put under a hallucination by a god or goddess you weren’t aware of. That being said, you didn’t get close to anyone because you were scared that you could be brought out of the hallucination at any point. However, you started getting closer to a certain red-headed housewarden as he extended a cup of tea “olive branch”.

Leona Kingscholar

When you stepped on his tail in the botanical gardens that day, he was annoyed as we all know. However, since you were in your Battle of the Labyrinth era, you were not about to take the shit he threw at you. Maybe if you were younger, but not now. You were pissed off at Percy and you were on a mission to get out of Twisted Wonderland as soon as possible.

He doesn’t really care that you are a more private person. However, when he sees you display some of your abilities, he does get a bit curious. Like, for example, you opened up the ground and had skeletons attack him while he was overblotting. He easily turned them into sand, but it was still surprising. He had never met anyone who could do that before, as magic in Twisted Wonderland could not do that.

But, there was one time where he was coming back from a Housewarden meeting, and he saw you putting a strange coin into the fountain while you were speaking to an apparition. He hid behind a pillar and saw that there was a figure on the ledge of the fountain. You turned around and Leona saw a tear slide down your face before you melted into the shadow that the fountain cast.

Leona eventually learned of your backstory by Ruggie running around and seeing what he could find about you. You were actually 82 years old, which definitely added to the small pile of “Things that Actually Surprised the Housewarden of Savanaclaw”. You had never actually celebrated your birthday by a birthday party. The apparition he saw in the fountain was your deceased sister. He feels like shit for the way he has treated you thus far.

Azul Ashengrotto

As we know, he was present during Leona’s overblot. So he sees that you can summon a dead army. And he definitely wants to get that under a contract that will put him at an advantage over the dead. However, you have already been in this situation. You were not about to be under someone else’s control again.

That being said, your fatal flaw made its appearance and you held a grudge against Azul. You would go out of your way to not come within six feet of this man. You started making your own meals and you would travel via the shadows. The cecaelia noticed, and he started to feel kind of bad… and so he asked the tweels to find information on you in exchange for less hours for an entire week.

They came up with a lot of things, actually. You were the descendent of Hades, the brother of the father of the King of the Sea. That is how you got your powers. It wasn’t magic at all. You had a full biological sister who joined the Hunters of Artemis group, but died. You were fighting gods and titans left and right… and you were still physically only 15 years old.

Unfortunately for you, your powers did not come in handy when you fought against his overblot. However, your sword did, as well as the potion that allowed you to breathe underwater. You’ve had plenty of experience with fighting in water, so you were well-versed and thus defeated him rather easily. You called him an amateur, stating that one of your fellow demigods at Camp Half-Blood would have posed a better challenge, which made his ego take critical damage.

Kalim Al-Asim

You cannot tell me that this man is not the Will Solace to your Nico di Angelo. However, unlike Will, Kalim does not have the power to heal anybody via singing a song. He is no archer. He has no super powerful whistle. He can’t put anyone under a ‘couplets curse’. He can’t emit a divine glow. He can’t shoot rays of light. He can’t change the seasons. He can’t control diseases. But he is still yours.

Because of the way he is, you physically can’t hold a grudge against him. But you are suspicious of the Vice Housewarden. You stick to the shadows and listen in on private conversations. Not like Kalim would ever believe you, but you have done what you could to prevent an uprising against him.

During Jamil’s overblot, you were actually able to defeat him rather easily, surprising Kalim. Sure, you were sent into the desert, but you were able to travel in the shadows that the dunes of sand cast. You were actually able to take everyone and travel faster. However, that left you drained, but you knew you had to keep fighting. Using the last of your strength, you summoned a skeletal army, and then your vision started to get dark.

Kalim ended up waking you up in the infirmary. He was crying and pleading with you to forgive him for not believing you all along. You were kind of confronted and put on the spot, wanting him not to make a noise and cause a scene. You patted his head kind of awkwardly, and he was so happy to see that you have forgiven him and that everything was going to be okay since you were awake now.

Vil Schoenheit

You looked like a corpse, and Vil was not afraid to point it out. You bit back and stated that because you were a child of Hades, God of the Underworld, it was understandable that you looked less than alive. That started a beautiful hateship between the two of you, as he’s trying to fix your eyebags and you’re trying to fix his attitude. You didn’t even know much about Neige, but you said something along the lines of, “it’s no wonder that everyone likes him over you.”

Anyways, Vil has sent Rook to go dig up some dirt that he could use against you. The hunter found out many heartbreaking things that made the Housewarden feel horrible about the things he has said about you. You were doing all of this just for Bianca, your deceased sister, because she told you that you needed to move on as she moved on to Elysium. 

When he overblots, you already have enough experience. Your sword has the ability to absorb darkness, and guess what the ink is? Anyways, you used your sword to absorb some of the ink, which weakened the overblotting mess. It was a relatively easy takedown, and you just left silently after. Again, your fatal flaw poked through, and you only helped because of Epel and Rook and how you were friends with them.

In the infirmary, Vil woke up right when you dropped off a single get-well gift. It was a small vase with just one stem of lavender as well as an olive branch. Just one, as you wanted to be stingy, but you wanted to be better than your fatal flaw. You wanted to show that you weren’t unsympathetic, so you extended this purple olive branch and the actual olive branch. Vil knew the language of plants all too well, and he got the message.

Idia Shroud

You both are shut-ins, you both are nerds… It's a match made in the Underworld. Nah, but all jokes aside, you both hated each other at first. You would debate each other on every single fact from any given Fandom. But you were good friends with Ortho, even if you did dislike the fact that he was so naive. He reminded you of yourself in the beginning of your demigod journey, and you did not like remembering all of that.

Anyways, Idia is going total cyber-stalker. He is trying to find something he can fight against you with, kind of like a Redditor. What he did manage to find was depressing and sad, and also made him feel like shit. Hearing about Bianca made him clutch onto Ortho more and appreciate having him, as not everyone could have such a good replacement as his robotic younger brother was for his dead older brother.

When he overblotted, you were just tired at this point. However, Idia proved to be much more of a challenge than you had originally thought. By this point, the Housewarden of Ignihyde had analyzed your powers as a child of Hades as well as thought about any other hidden powers you may or may not have, and prepared accordingly. You couldn’t shadow-travel at all and you couldn’t use the ground for whatever reason (Idia had used magic to keep you from doing so).

It was depending on your assholes of friends that allowed you to win, because the one thing that the flame-haired 18-year-old didn’t expect was for you to suck it up and forget your grudges against Ace just to beat his ass. So, he was left vulnerable as you acted as a weird diversion, using his love for a certain anime against him as you shouted a complete hot-take that he definitely did not agree with. 

Malleus Draconia

Hey, look everybody! It’s the social rejects! I’m just playing… kind of. You both tend to emit an aura that can be portrayed as frightening to others. The only difference was that your aura was intentional, and it even managed to give Sebek a spook sometimes. However, it did not deter Malleus from reaching out to you and extending an olive branch. That was the start of a beautiful relationship between the two of you.

I have a headcanon that this dragon prince is kind of like a goth version of Will Solace. You can confide in him during your nightly walks, and he is not going to judge you for it. You have actually told him about your older sister and her untimely death, and while he did try to tell you that it wasn’t Percy’s fault and you weren’t hearing it, you secretly knew that it was true and it was just your fatal flaw that kept you from forgiving Jackson.

Speaking of confiding within him, you’ve also told him that you were scared that he was going to overblot. He was so attached to his retainers as well as you and Lilia that it would be wrong to qualify this fear as anything but rational. Malleus understood, as you’ve already had to fight six overblots in the relatively short amount of time you’ve been in Twisted Wonderland, and you’ve had to solve the familial issues of an arsonist (Rollo Flamm).

Your fluency in Greek fascinated Malleus, as Greek was not a common language that was spoken. He had no idea what or where ‘Greece’ was, but he was also interested in learning about Hades as well as your [distant] cousins, who were the other demigods at Camp Half-Blood. Then, there was an entire other demigod camp called Camp Jupiter, and you were kind of a ghost story between the two. You, in turn, listened to his silly little rants about gargoyles, as you believed that there needed to be a healthy exchange in interests within the relationship.

[parsleepotato]

Medic riding a Utahraptor

Finally! My most recent work! A secret santa I finished last December for @crow0artzz in a discord server we're in! It was an immense pleasure to make this piece for you! 😁✨

Extras below ⬇️ I also have more to say on this piece!

Regular dove version (the one above is the bloody dove version)

no color version

I'm extremely proud of this piece! 💖✨ I added a few Jurassic Park references, and based the Utahraptor's colors on Medic and his doves. I was presented 3 options, 2 of which were Medic or a Utahraptor. I love TF2 and Dinos, so rather than do just 1, I just had to combine the 2!

Of course this megalomaniac, self proclaimed god, would revive a dinosaur, Jurassic Park style, and ride it into battle, and you cannot convince me otherwise! 😂

Reblogs and feedback is greatly appreciated! Please don't steal my work, or repost it without my permission. I hope you all have a wonderful day!

[hdusa]

that was my first time watching a lifesteal stream in like 6 months i dont know what is going on in season 5 at all . the red sky was kinda awesome. guns were scary. i hope u kill more people soon ^_^ will be trying 2 tune in more - @renchant

I can try to summarize the entire season in like 3 paragraphs it’s going to be so terrible and long I’m so sorry watch me do it here we go

So basically… lifesteal season 5 begins…. There’s a group called the PMC that consists of MinuteTech LeoWook and ClownPierce and since they’re all big strong men they beat up every other team on the server. Eventually the PrinceZam + Pangi pirate team group up with Gucci Gang (Bacon Parrot Mapicc) to beat them up because they’re really strong and scary. Eventually Clown stops logging on so they feel the need to form a new team called the Phantoms with Vitalasy Jumper and Reddoons and they go around jumping people by staying logged out and then all logging in at the same time after someone’s lured to a location. It got them a PrinceZam kill but they failed against Mapicc and Bacon. Tons of fights happen that are just PMC vs Gucci Gang + Me or LaLa Legion (Spoke Ash Ro Planet) vs Us or whatever. Eventually new members get added, Squiddo Pentar Jepex Wemmbu. There’s a gay wedding between Parrot and Ashswag. Squiddo kills the entire server at a birthday party. I made 200 backup maxed out armor sets. Midmystic makes Pangi and I an awesome pirate base and lastly a chunk of the server lowkey stop logging on.

Because of the void left by the players that are now gone (Parrot, Vitalasy kinda, Reddoons, Poafa, Woogie, Vort3x etc) Mapicc and I have no choice but to find a way to make things awesome again. We build a void trap at spawn and try to lure Minute and Planet over, successfully killing Planet (this is ok because he’s a 20 heart monster this season btw!!) Bacon joins us and decides we need two extra members so we invite Pentar and JumperWho as well. Together we formed a team called The Abyss, a group of players that want to revive the server by destroying it. By making ourselves the big bads of the server every time people logged on their goal was to kill us so that we’d stop making our void hole at spawn bigger. They tried other things like filling the hole with water and obsidian but those all got fixed relatively fast. One of the things they did was find my secret base and steal all 200 of my armor sets. This made me really mad so I destroyed the entire PMC base. After months of constant fighting over this big dumb hole to the void at spawn eventually we come up with an end goal. We were going to turn the entirety of spawn island into void. While working on this insanely large project we get jumped and after like 5 battles where Planet just keeps dying but his teammates live, he bans himself in the void hole. Before doing so he asks what our goal is so I told him activity, and he says “well in that case I guess in a way I’ve beat you”. This was like cold asf so we immediately switch gears deciding we need to make our plan way awesomer and cooler so we add a puzzle for them to solve!! It’s super long and if they couldn’t finish it in 7 days the entirety of spawn would be turned to void. Our team immediately got to work running big bedrock break machine and cleaning out layer after layer. However, as this is all happening Wemmbu Squiddo and 4CVIT reveal that they have a massive canon that will blow up literally EVERYTHING on the server unless we give them 50 hearts. They blows up 4Cs entire beautiful base to show they’re not joking around. Minute and his group are able to find the canon and break it saving the server but for a moment the entire server was united against Wemmbu and his team. The Abyss goal was completed before our final project even began which sucked, but we kept moving forward. To get people interested Minute (temporarily) added Rekrap2 Back To The Server!!!! He was here to help them finish the puzzle and after a week of us racing to void everything while they solve our puzzles, it was over and they had won. The 5 of us now had to jump into the void but that’s when JumperWho revealed she had been a mole the whole time. For 3 months of constant work on the void hole, she was betraying us. Relaying everything to Minute and his team. Filled with rage Mapicc decided to bomb her base but ended up with Clown Leo Minute Jumper and potentially more on him. I came to help but I wasn’t ready to fight Jumper, somebody I’d been allies with for 3 months. I managed to escape but I couldn’t believe it. Afterwards Pentar also left our team leaving just Mapicc Bacon and I.

The next paragraph is basically everything that’s happened since so basically the last month or so. To fix the lack of order on the server players could now run for God! Mapicc, Minute, Squiddo and 4CVIT/Reddoons decided to run. Simultaneously Branzy was now working on a carnival which was really cool! During one of the games I rigged it so that Jumper would die which was silly revenge but then for serious revenge me and Mapicc tried jumping her. Unfortunately she got Minute to save her leading to us losing badly. Afterwards the presidential god stuff starts taking priority and to campaign we ask a bunch of people to vote for us. In the end we came 2nd place, and Pentar as well as Pangi voted against Mapicc. Pentar made sense since he never said he would vote Mapicc, but Pangi had quite literally betrayed all of our trusts by voting for Squiddo. Also Minute came dead last despite helping everyone on the server regear and also saving them from void and the canon which is hilarious. The winners were 4C and Reddoons who instead of actually running themselves chose to give their presidency to CaptainSparklez! It takes him a while to join and during that time period to fill the lack of things going on Mapicc and I start an all out war against Jumper. It started with a silly spar against MinuteTech that ended up turning into a 2v2 against Jumper as well. We got them to run the first time around but the 2nd time we just lost badly. The next day Jumper said she’d deliver stone from Vitalasys old base to Midmystic so we hid in Vitalasys base all day long. It was taking a while so I changed my discord pfp and name to match Mids and got her to log on 😭😭. Once she showed up we killed her. Minute logged on and she ended up coming back but we escaped with me on the brink of death. Because of this they were angry angry at us but we didn’t care we wanted to make them more mad. We started base hunting and found Minutes somewhat old base for the anti abyss people. While searching the base Minute showed up so Mapicc got there and we 2v1d him. During the fight we spawned a wither in the base bombing the area and revealing a third of the 200 armor sets I had stolen from me during the void arc!!! Eventually Jumper showed up so we decided to run away taking our win. But after this we had another fight where they jumped us at my base and we ended up losing after an extremely long and hard fought battle. Before this I forgot to mention but Bacon Mapicc and I brainstormed a team name as well as an end goal, SPOILERS NO LIFESTEAL MEMEBRS READ BEYOND THIS!!!!

STOP IT! DO NOT READ AHEAD LIFESTEAL MEMBERS!!!

Essentially we wanted to reset the server to how it was on day one, breaking apart every team and then resetting every area back to how it looked on day one. With this goal in mind I realized we’d need to actually be able to kill people so I needed to get past being on 9 hearts. 4C/Red made hearts literally uncraftable so I had to kill. This segment is really cool there’s a 10 or 20 minute clip of everything that happens and if I tried to explain it I wouldn’t do it any justice but I’m sure somebody will link it below. Anyway after the awesome clip moment I’m evil now so I try to kill Pangi. I lead him to our old day one base and get him to help me repair it but he is wayyy too sus of me. I eventually muster up the courage to block off the bases exits and ask him over and over why he voted Squiddo, as this was supposed to be revenge for that. However, MinuteTech logs on and arrives at the base leading to them 2v1ing me but I end up escaping. We scream at each other before I leave to set up a new base. Later that night Pentar calls with Mapicc and I to join our team. Thanks to him I’m basically able to fully regear myself after losing almost everything to all the fights we had with Minute and Jumper. I end up on 12 hearts by this point and I think that’s most the shenanigans wrapped up, all that’s left is the captain sparklez stuff which this specific asker has already seen I think. For anyone else I personally believe this should be vod watched!! Up to you of course but I’m sure someone else on here would be willing to summarize that specific event sometime.

I spent an hour writing this on my phone before bed and I can’t believe it took this long. I thought it’d be shorter. Sorry!

[tboyquackity]

i've always said that 90% of the issues on the dsmp can be sourced back to being cdrms fault, and i think undoubtedly one of the easiest throughlines tht showcases this is how often he scapegoats people. UNDER THE CUT CUZ I'M CRAZY AND WROTE TOO MUCH.

ok. so why did ceret need to be involved in a betrayal like she was? why was a shitty peace position and king position invented to hold over her head? canonically, those opposing lmanberg DID overestimate how powerful they were, but even those lines feel extremely flimsy considering WHO these ppl are. cdrm and csapnap are genuine contenders against people like CTECH, and cpunz cgeorge are no slouches either, being EXTREMELY underrated bcs of the people they're around but. they're also stupid strong. what did lmanberg have? which of them were anything close to real fighters, and would the little some of them CAN fight be enough for multiple ctech tier brawlers? it's a country built on words and community thts the whole Point.

so why did it need to be ceret. bcs it wasn't about that! it was about breaking their spirits, that their community would turn on eachother, and how they're stupid abt even bothering to try. it's undoubtedly abt sending a message, while also diverting blame frm the person who Actually set everything up. and thts EXACTLY what happens.

ceret becomes a pariah to them, one of their own ousted, put in their country's song as a mocking fuck you. and her betrayal directly plants the seed tht leads to cwil losing his shit which leads to gestures. you get what i'm saying.

same w cschlatt like UNDENIABLY cdrm set her up. cschlatt is invited onto the server by his (CANONICALLY. IDGAF if a bad writer retcons smthing AFTER the fact. csweater r textually thematically verbally confirmed over and over to be deeply important to eachother and tht they already know eachother for a long ass time argue w the wall) old pal cwil and little fans cclingy just to hang out, and cdrm bans him on the SPOT for having been added w/o his permission. this is one of the HUGE reasons lmanberg was even made in the first place! having their buddy and autonomy taken from them, the unreasonable control cdrm was exerting over them, it all lead into eachother to snowball into rebellion. and when its all over he adds cschlatt on back for the election.

cschlatt turns away frm being cwil's endorcement, of course, v blatently saying that their relationship is strained and that he resents being looked down upon for his addiction. and cdrm is alllll to happy to jump in when they start arguing, egging him on when he lashes out, giving him weapons to make him look crazy when he (jokingly) starts firing at people, and then cdrm messages cq. *endorce schlatt2020.* and to be clear, cpumpkins end up joining forces for a multitude of reason, but WHY would cdrm feel the need to push thing a certain direction. WHY is schlatt2020 to his benefit.

cdrm, who supposedly "only wants peace 🥺", allows ctechno on the server whn he's more than capable of banning him atp. he's allowed in w the express interest of starting a destructive war. cdrm supplies cwil w the tnt he'll use to kill himself. cdrm makes deals behind everyones backs w cwil so the guy can kill himself. cdrm didnt blow up manburg, cwil did!! isn't that guy crazy!! cdrm makes deals behind everyones backs so ctech cn kill everyone else. cdrm joins cschlatt after her isolation w the express purpose of snatching the revive book away frm her at the first opportunity. wonder why he needed to brute force this order of events to happen. lol.

look at how he treats ctubbo during nlm. talking down to him, insulting him, making him responsible for horrible decisions that HE'S CAUSING so CTUBBO looks like the crazy one. and wht abt EVERYTHING w ctommy. he explicitly frames him over and over, treats him like an almost figurehead of all the "bad" he wants to correct fucking grown ass man obsessed w this little ass boy to the point he KIDNAPS HIM. he frames ctommy to have exile happen he wants ppl to think he's crazy and dangerous and annoying and tht he DESERVES it. cdrm can't possibly be at fault!! it's that brat he needs to beat and condition into submission ohhhh LOLLLL (cracks his head open w my bare hands)

whatever, you get what i'm saying. he never gaf abt peace he never gaf abt people he lied to his fellow characters and audience and they BELIEVED HIM even though he's a conniving a less than worm ass rotting loser who is the source of MOST problems on the server and gensrs if he had been shot in his stupid ass head day one everything would've been fine. and he's an ugly. and he's blonde. and we're gnna torture him again idgaf.

[neobastard]

neopets posted a very lengthy update to the portal site, the new format replacing the monthly AMAs.

the full post can be found here: https://portal.neopets.com/news/may22-neopets-updates

but i'll summarize the community questions and other updates beneath the cut:

community QnA:

Q: is neopets planning a "rugpull"?

A: no, the team working on the site has doubled over the past two years and everyone is working hard to revive not just the brand but the site itself. these teams' commitment to both neopets,com and spinoff projects and merchandise for brand relevance is described as "unwavering"

Q: why are they making money with nc releases but not improving the site?

A: there are different teams working on engineering, improvements, and nc releases simultaneously. the engineering and improvement team is much larger than the team working on nc, it's just less visible to players than new items because it's "wizard behind the curtain" changes (they described it as fixing issues on an older tech stack). every dollar they make goes back into neopets in some form, including events, collaborations, and further development. the company is still at a loss but it's not as dire as it used to be two years ago (which is a great improvement, NC discourse aside).

as for major updates:

revamped NC mall - the nc mall will get a new converted layout around late Q2 to Q3 this year, and a tutorial along with the changes.

easier to find on-site wishlist

one click purchasing (alongside the cart)

fixed pet preview!!

reorganized shop directory

new shopkeeper NPCs

here's the new mockup:

website loading speed improvements - there's been a 35% improvement in loading speed since january as a result of specific optimizations, such as backend enhancements, optimizing database queries, cleaning up records, and upgrading servers (a bunch of tech talk essentially)

anti botting progress - neopets has seen a 15% reduction in bot traffic by blocking it at the network level (which likely improved the performance of the site in and of itself). they intend to further tighten defenses, through methods that remain unstated but will likely hit these paid bots and the people who benefit from them hard.

wearable NP and NC item bug fixes - 37 items have been fixed since april, with 21 items on the chopping block for later this month.

and what's on the horizon:

altador cup: they grey year

enhancements to jhudora and illusen's quests, including new battledome item returns (and a $7 club perk that grants extra time)

more progress on converting NP and NC items

expansion of the avatar high score table

adding invisible pets to the customization spotlight

updates to the trading post, including a page conversion

and of course, the void within: episode 2

i'm glad that this new format allows for more transparency, a lot of people thought the video/stream format was too "corporate" and so these big updates to the portal allows them to cover a lot more. i'm excited for what's to come, and i'm honestly glad they ripped the bandaid off and just outright said "yeah we're working on the site behind the scenes y'all just don't see that part cause it's nerd shit".

a lot has improved over the last two years in this site, and i'm appreciative of the team's hard work regardless of my numerous complaints about things like neocash items and the $7 club. they clearly care about feedback and making neopets for the players before all else including any kind of profit.

[bad-traffic-smp-ideas]

Fourth life— ok hear me out !!!

Normal third life mechanics. Every session a guest player is added onto the server ; they are a red name, however they have the power to bestow a life upon someone. This can be themselves, if they decide to join the game fully OR they can use this power to revive a dead player to the fourth life team. The fourth lives goal is to bring about everyone’s demise to join the fourth life team. Last man standing wins.

So there could be a guest and all the players are like "UGH can we PLEASE get rid of this guy already" and then they gift themself the life and join the game like "lol. actually i like it here :]"

[transgirl-gaming-thoughts]

Pretendo Network is a really cool project, but I can't switch over to it full-time for my 3DS yet. Not enough of my friends have it (friends list empty ;w;) and not enough games from my library supported yet. But I'm glad I installed it and I'm really excited to follow the project! As soon as Pokémon games and maybe Smash 3DS get added, it's all over for me <3

(oh yeah, go check out Pretendo! their project is super cool, reviving Nintendo Network, game servers, Miiverse, the works! Link)

(and if you use Pretendo and wanna add me to your friend list hmu 👉👈)

[laciefuyu]

//cn server spoilers, tw & glb server

Well, well it looks like we got our event to the end of year! Christmas & New Year 2SSR & 2SR!! (It have been a long time isn't it)

I was thinking about doing a rounded post during lunch break but I am more busy than I thought today so, during dinner is it XD

Why I said Christmas & New Year because while Luke & Vyn SSR have christmas vibes, Artem & Marius SR have more New Year vibes (Year-end cleaning, couplet (i think), Angpao and the Firework XD)

This is a return of the monopoly games, and ofc the 2SSR banner being Luke/Vyn banner and the return to our painful beloved SR flip card XD

The free SR this time around is Artem! (God bless for me because I starred his 2nd Solo SSS in TW server despite being (forced) f2p in that server, it's worth it.) and the paid one with S-chips one is Marius SR XD

In CN server itself the event will start Dec 19 - Jan 02 ;)

Meanwhile in TW server, Dec 17 will be the start of Marius SSR (yes the one in pajamas), I guess for TW server the 2SSR & 2SR event itself will start after that event XD

I also plan to gifs this set of course but I want to savour Per Asper Ad Astra SSS first (also two starred this card, worth it) this was the card that revive my love for Themis, that made me believe that their writers would deliver again (and they did! I have nothing but praise this year since then). If you like Artem but can't pull, I still recommend reading the card recording (and even better if you read Day and Night SSR & Belle Nuit d'Amour SSR first!)

But promise, I will gifs this PV as soon as possible!!

Ah and if anyone is interested to see some recording and screenshot and gameplay for Heart of Every Season: Autumn, I made a thread in twitter: (https://x.com/LacieFuyu/status/1865594522987905531?t=_aF0yjaZ73qeK9kERm35og&s=19)

I will add more in the Card thread after I get 10 flowers of ardor from reverie so I can unlock everything HAHAHAH

I hope you all have a good day \o/