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coffeegnomee · 2 months ago

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The Phenomenon of Mapicc

At some point we all look back at our early teen years and realize that just because we can scam a fellow kid online because the game developers didn’t specifically write it out of the code or write safety procedures to protect their user base doesn’t mean we should scam other kids online. At some point we all realize, almost out the blue, that the other people online are real people and not just slightly more interesting npc’s walking around the world. (Though the tendency to do so anyway is always present)

Mapicc as a character on the lifesteal smp has long eluded definition for me. There are ways in which he simultaneously 1) a blurred line between character and streamer, 2) a clear cut motivated character with clearly defined goals and personality, and 3) simply and completely a guy playing a video game.

He is all three at the same time. A blurring of real emotions into the Minecraft world, a player curated for a video, and the man who is who he is while he plays video games. I don’t think you can take one out and get a serious understanding of the character of Mapicc.

The battle between all three is constant, and the person who Mapicc plays as the persona of the Mapicc channel is only one part of the lifesteal character that the audience can encounter. The persona of Mapicc, the video Mapicc, is brutal and bloodthirsty, uncaring of past connections, and dedicated to a cause. At least, specifically when you watch that unfold on streams. He’ll be randomly extra brutal for seemingly no reason until you realize he’s got a specific video idea he’s doing. Like killing Pangi and Zam day 1 was bc he was running out of the 24 hours to get to 20 hearts, which is a video idea and also seemingly not caring that (at least Zam) is a close friend. Tbh it’s been a while since I thought about the actual persona of a Mapicc video as told through edited content, honestly, if anything I would say the Mapicc that Mapicc presents to the world on his channel is much closer to himself than how that plays out while watching it as a stream viewer on the server.

Now, you might already be thinking, gnome, this is too much like c! And cc! And I’m tired of all those indicators why can’t it just be blurred and that’s it and it’s all just fun analysis about a small facet of a person that we see only when they want us to and is bound within the four infinite walls of a Minecraft server.

To which I would say, yes, yes my brain hurts too.

But there is something about Mapicc that can only ever be understood through the lens of the media that he exists within and from. I might even argue PrinceZam is not in this category despite being notorious for being a blurred line character. This isn’t simply about the nature of blurred lines in mcrp.

Mapicc is not simply a blurred line. Those two facets of strictly a character and strictly the kid who plays Minecraft on top of the blurred line are vastly important.

A blurred line character is a character that smoothly and subconsciously transfers between the real emotions and psychology of a singular real human, and the projected, improved character that they are playing. They might start as a clearly defined experiment such as “what if I played as a pacifist” and divert into something completely complex. They’re almost like a thought experiments. What if I changed this about myself; how would that look?

Every streamer will be a blurred line at some point. We’re watching real people be entertainment; at some point there is a boundary between who they are and how they present themselves. Some will either create a persona to project to the world as themselves, dropping the act only at certain times, while other streamers might pick up a persona/character at times to fulfill a fun facet of the story but then drop it easily to play the game while talking to chat. I would argue that both sides are valid at the same time for interpreting their characters, an easy example being tommyinnit and Philza respectively. Any server they’ve been on has been marked by their respective styles and you can interpret their characters within by looking at both aspects together, and the elements of the character as a whole will be discovered differently in different situations.

Mapicc, once again is not quite that.

As a streamer who is actually pretty consistent in his upload schedule, he is motivated by the story he tells, the plots he wants to pull off, and the villains he fights against. I find it imminently fascinating that the castle arc was actually supposed to be a video but was scrapped bc Mapicc lost the fight, rather than what was told, sometime earlier, that he just never made it a video and regretted it bc the fans loved the story.

But he is also a player who plays lifesteal consistently. His breaks while editing are markedly shorter than most other players who upload, and his time on the server while not having a clear video idea are much longer than nearly 2/3 of the player base. Most members of lifesteal only appear when they have a video idea.

So therefore he plays Minecraft while on his or other’s streams.

We are all aware to some degree who we are when we play video games. It’s not the same as who we are as people. Whether it’s being more violent, or being a completionist, or farming, or building, or ranking up; everyone has their own preference for why they like playing a video game in the first place.

Minecraft as the particular sandbox that it is has four entire categories of gameplay that coexist at nearly all times: pvp, optimization (speedrunning/redstone), building, and socializing.

Throw anyone into a Minecraft world and they’re going to gravitate to some more than others. And each category has subsets: pvp can be split into competitive and hunting people down; optimization can be grinding, or game mechanics, or red stone machining; building can be artistic/creative mode, or just for fun, or secret bases, or tunnel cults, or anything your mind can think of that manipulates the blocks in the game; socializing can be as a shared activity, or trolling other players, or just running around wasting golden carrots together.[1] etc etc etc.

And Mapicc has maxed out the pvp category, at least to the best of his ability. He leans far more towards hunting people down rather than pure competitive gameplay, preferring to “change the world”[2] by killing someone rather than practice mechanics in a practice server. He wants to get on the ground and actually affect the world around him just as much as any builder.

In other words, the bloodlust isn’t just something he does because his character likes blood and he wants to do a villain arc. Mapicc would want to kill on any world he joins, and would be rather bored if that wasn’t an option for him.

He is also incredibly social, preferring to play with someone else around him rather than taking on solo missions by himself. He’s not a grinder by nature in the slightest, but has learned the skills to be one.

He’s also honorable, in a world commonly upheld has having no honor, holding to a moral code of killing and being attacked as honorable while running in circles and bow spam and not showing up to fight and avoiding battle are categorically dishonorable acts that he disdains. The rule is the rule of battle. Fight and kill and be killed. Let the cycles commence.

And as soon as we start thinking about Mapicc in relation to others, we start to see his character give form.

And this is where we finally loop back around to the point I alluded to in the first paragraph: the phenomenon of growing up.

Mapicc by the end of s4 and through s5, I would say, was his most consistent era. All the memes and love about dogged devotion, unending bloodlust and run-you-down-to-the-ends-of-the-earth-forever-and-ever were thriving. His patience was surprising, willing to wait for the opportune moment to get revenge, never forgetting what had been done against him. [3]

But something shifted in s6, and not just the responsibility of being the owner of the server. Mapicc is simply maturing. No longer 14 years old like in s1, we’re in the post high-school-graduation era.

In the past I would’ve called Mapicc a cheater (/aff), an exploiter, willing, so very willing, to do anything to turn the tide of a battle to his advantage.

But now? I’m not so sure.

Will he be immune to temptation when it arises? No, not at all. While we are already seeing his willingness to never dupe again, his easy laughing off suggestions to admin abuse, we are also seeing his frustration lead him to launching nukes at spawn with Spoke.

He will still always call in backup when he promises a fair fight. But hey, it’s lifesteal. Lying is part of it. And honor is found in showing up to the fight, not in a fair 1v1. This is war after all.

But, and I mean this specifically for the entire character that is the story of Mapicc, Mapicc has been changed. This season is so devastatingly different. Duping and being on the wormhole side in s4 changed him, getting beaten by a traitor in the Abyss changed him.

But s6 has been a slow cooker roasting him into something new.

Everything points to him wanting to mature, to be different from the past, not so impulsive, more caring of his own time and others, willing to drop the past.

Bitterness in loosing teammates and friends, loneliness in a world once populated by an awesome team, and the cold cruel hand of suddenly being favored by the Sever, have only brought sorrow and destruction upon him.

And he’s left purposeless, held together only by what he has left to him, his honor, his pride.

And so, on a much more practical and real world level, Mapicc just does’t have a video idea for s6 anymore and he wants to upload more frequently. Back in s4 he was so much quicker to anger and long-drawn-out to seeing it through. He’s unwilling to drop four months into one video that he doesn’t even upload. This isn’t high school anymore.

And that real world problem of YouTuber-doesn’t-have-video-idea, is part of every character on lifesteal. That ebb and flow of inspiration curates each and every one of them. Wemmbu being done with ls ideas for the season will lead him to ban himself to be rid of the temptation to log on, leading others to be affected by how callously he leaves this world without thought of what they think, thereby curating the character into a complex emotional mess who doesn’t believe people actually care about him or would want him around and who pushes people away and is villainous because he’s never understood what love is. All because he doesn’t have an ls video and has a uu script to write.

It’s part of any lifestealer who doesn’t naturally gravitate towards the “lore” of the server.

And yet recently I’ve been really feeling like Mapicc absolutely plays lifesteal like it’s actually mcrp. He’s become invested in how Mapicc would react to the elements of the server and the things that happen to him. He’s always cared deeply about the livelihood of the server, but it’s more curated into a story than ever before. Mapicc is The Complainer and The Sass Master and that has made him into pvper who is notorious for running around the server dropping lore lines as trash talk, never missing a chance to really lay it in how dumb he thinks Flame is for logout trapping him and always doing what Mane tells him to do. Why? He doesn’t have a video idea for that 2v1 (unless?), none of that trash talk is necessary, he’s shown he doesn’t say that trash talk when on the practice server just days after the event happened. Like, that is so specifically a rp moment taken advantage of. It has no other use than bc on lifesteal Mapicc Hates Flame. (and because on lifesteal is his only outlet for those emotions; he's not going to start hating on his friends in real life for in game stuff)

Sure, in some ways Mapicc keeps lore distinct and at arms length. And this is, for instance, why I think devotions is as devastatingly dramatic as it is; because Mapicc will never admit how much Zam means to him and yet will be character-motivated by his devotion to Zam at all times. But him as a person just keeps that mostly at arms length; it’s not him caring about Zam it’s about the wardens, guys. Spawning wardens for a video. And owning spawn. Obviously.

You see what I’m getting at? It’s not just blurred, it’s two separate thoughts held at the same time. Mapicc and Mapicc combining together to make Mapicc.

So much of Mapicc is a mashing together of anything and everything he thinks of throwing at the screen. And all of that somehow comes out to an actually understandable and crisp final character who always acts in the most Mapicc way possible at all times always, undefinable except by saying “it’s just Mapicc” and that Meaning something.

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So when you see me writing about Mapicc, know this is what is going on in my head.

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[1] im bringing footnotes into a Tumblr essay. Wemmbu, who I talk about later, would naturally play Minecraft as a run around wasting golden carrots type guy. As a person playing Minecraft he does not gravitate towards doing, well, anything. It is only in making a video that he will move himself to be anything. Despite learning pvp and rising, what, two teirs?, he is not someone who will casually look for fights while on a server. It’s not in his blood.

[2] ~1:00:00 GREYS prinzezam vod, ZAM: ‘why are you always trying to kill someone mapicc?” MAPICC: ‘I dunno.. Maybe I feel….. Underachieving. Without it. Like I didn't get anything done to day unless I get another kill” ZAM: “but you have 20 hearts” MAPICC: “yea but the killing is changing the world”

[3] The castle arc lasted from November 27 until March 6. From the day Zam left team awesome to the day they finally got their 1v1 without Spoke spawning a warden. 99 days. (That’s fucking crazy given the 97 days we just went through). I suppose in a very valid way, the mace arc was 8 months and we have no idea where s6 will go and how Mapicc will get revenge on flame, for instance. But as of now he’s just done. That’s very different than any other time in his lifesteal life, and the response, as a long time Mapicc viewer, is more empathetically devastating. But those 8 months are not the same as the four months of the castle arc. The mace was no logged in for most of those days. His dogged determination wasn't the same this season as the past.

#lifesteal spoilers #mapicc #gnome rambles #devotions #gnome essay

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deifyruby · 3 months ago

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ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤlittle theorizing timeee~~~

beware, spoilers for i spent 100 days hidden in a secret minecraft base.

(ps ps. i didn't do a post for the other eps, but fuck yeah, FUCK YEah, i called it. the director is sooooo meta. fist up in the air moment.)

the moment the director involves themselves in the story they wrote, egg stops being meta (mentioning his irl life, literally said he watched spoke's videos when wemmbu asked him if he knew spoke) and starts taking uu seriously (literally told someone to chill because minecraft empires were Not That Serious, famous words thirty minutes before taking a minecraft empire Very Seriously), and spoke is acting out of character + there's clearly missing story between s1finale and s2e1. do you reckon the director is finally stepping up, busy with hunting down parrot and orchestrating tax duo's gradual descend, so they don't have enough time to fill in spoke's blank spots? couldn't bother to write anything abt minute and mape? because, a director only has two hands. godly being or not, i assume the director has a human-like form. maybe someone like cc parrot. :)

since we're going down this rabbit hole, do the mcs have protagonist halos? is it a halo granted to them by the director? then, can they lose it? when they lose it, will they stop uploading, because they are no longer center piece? also, i believe s2 is gonna heavily revolve around taking away the mcs' support network. isolating them from their best friends (wifies, eggchan and mape. i had a feeling when they killed off wifies, but egg suddenly doing a 180° just furthered my suspicions. and today we Clearly saw, mapicc and minute were not even Mentioned or referenced).

on that line of thought. the video was so out of character and Not unstable universe like at all, that when spoke actually brought up s1 after being weirdly vague about squiddo and ash as if he hadn't known them more closely than he was acting like, that it actually broke my immersion a little bit? so not immersive i got immersed in the not-immersiveness. 😭

side note, i don't have the ss but squidswag kiss in uu i know that's right... i knowww ash did that on purpose, and the way squiddo went quiet. 😭🫵🏻 why are We third wheeling. why is Spoke third wheeling rn.

also we saw a new side to ash today. :) he's a retired guy who just wants to live in his bunker with squiddo. i can respect that, to the point i felt... kinda bad for ash! crazy isn't it? since when do i, the viewer, feel bad for ash and (mildly) upset at spoke? after the stunts ash pulled? whatever spoke did may lowkey be his karma ngl. :crying:

by the way... ash is changed now that he is no longer the director's pawn. does this mean uu characters were already existing, not entirely the director's creation; just being influenced by the director? but when the director is no longer puppeteering their strings, they are now perhaps free to be the person they always were. maybe ash liked squiddo because squiddo was not a big character in the director's plot, so they saw through the role that was put upon him by the director.

not to cleanse ash of his sins, i think it'd be interesting if the director actually chose the puppets for their play based on pre-existing ambitions and traits. would make ash still a greedy manipulator, but maybe he wouldn't make a whole ass mafia?

hey. doesn't this whole yap remind you about someone else? egg, perhaps? what if the director got egg. influencing him, taking away the bits from egg that inconvenienced his plans. the fact that egg was so meta was inconvenient, wasn't it? egg may just be the closest to busting your whole play. without egg, wemmbu always seems to crack less jokes. to take the situation more seriously. without egg around, wemmbu is less likely to break the fourth wall; to even realize it's there in the first place.

wowieee i went a bit crazy yapping my head off, but hey. we'll see how far fetched this was. :P

you 🫵🏻 will not convince me that spoke s2e1 isn't intentionally edited that way. it feels meta in a weird way. if i can care enough i'll rewatch it and hopefully come out with a theory about why it's this way.

#boo's yap #unstable universe #spokeishere #wemmbu #eggchan #parrotx2 #wifies #typed this out while waiting for the bus + on the ride + finished when i arrived :thumbsup:

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