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minecraftrelatedrandomness · 4 months

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So You Want to Get Into Pirates SMP…

Do you enjoy dark fantasy series with intensive worldbuilding? Heart-wrenching character arcs and dynamics? Or do you just like cubitos goofing off or flirting with each other and/or NPCs while going on silly quests looking for treasure? We've got the SMP for you!

Pirates SMP was a whitelist-only, modded roleplay MC SMP hosted by POWCreations (Apokuna and OwengeJuice) in collaboration with noName Ideas, and was run from July 30th to December 10th, 2023.

This post covers an introduction to the worldbuilding, the POV characters, and the main server events. Follow-up posts will cover recommended POVs based on character lore intensity (hard/soft and frequency), how accessible those POVs are, plotline-based recaps, and general fandom resources.

Introduction

Here's the gist of the worldbuilding: the series is set in Ecclesiae Sea, a region surrounded by an extensive wall of ice that won't be discovered until a few weeks into the series. In the heart of the Ecclesiae Sea are the Faction Isles, AKA the Pirate Isles, where the pirates are split into four factions:

Herons: They value exploration and discovery. Some members play the seeker archetype who search for the truth, while others may be explorers, historians, scientists, and/or academics. At their worst, they can be arrogant and a bit snobby, and have been accused of historical revisionism for their own benefit (this is never proven in canon).

Kestrels: They value luxury and are basically the materialistic rich people faction. They like their cash money and appreciate people with the ambition to earn that cash money, and tend to be self-serving. At their worst, they don't care about people around them and can be quite classist, except they make the capitalism funny in the "comically evil" kind of way.

Kites: They value strength in combat and are the type of people to fight god whenever things go wrong. Like the Kestrels, at their worst, they don't care much about the people around them, not even in their own faction.

Nightingales: They value adventure and the friends they make along the way, i.e. they're the found family faction. Most people like the Nightingales, but they are capable of being horrible people at their worst. Some people look down on the Nightingales for being the "softie" faction, and there are jokes about them trauma-bonding over terrible pasts – yes, in canon, and according to cc!Apo, "they're not wrong".

Beyond the Faction Isles, there also exist rogue pirates unaffiliated with any of the four factions, some forming unaffiliated factions of their own, others preferring to sail with their ships and crews alone.

In short, it's Sea of Thieves meets Divergent, except dark fantasy and in Minecraft. The exact nature of the dark fantasy in the worldbuilding (i.e. what series it's similar to in that aspect) is a spoiler for the biggest plot twist in the series, so I won't elaborate on that unless anyone asks/DMs me.

After choosing a faction on their first day, the pirates go on quests to get gold and treasure to upgrade their gear and ships by trading with NPCs. Naturally, there are supernatural evil forces at work that are threatening the pirates' way of life forever, so in the greater server lore, it's their job to figure out what's up. Outside of that, though, many POVs have individual character lore and their own stories to tell.

Annotation: The NPCs mentioned above are usually run on an AI chatbot outside of intensive lore moments, where they would be played by inactive server members or admins. These AI-based interactions play little importance in most plotlines and are generally skippable (as mentioned, actual lore interactions are player-based). However, they are involved in a few unavoidable character dynamics in individual character plotlines. I'll tell you ahead of time whenever these interactions are important.

POV Characters

You might know some of the content creators involved on the server already, so I'm listing them by faction, taking note of their RP character names (if they have one) and pronouns, and when their POVs start because a handful of the POVs start later than Day 1.

Herons (discovery)

OliveSleepy – character pronouns they/them, only appears on Day 1

OwengeJuice – character pronouns he/her and does not use they/them

Scott Smajor – character name Scott Denholm

Snifferish – first appears on Day 52 (Sept 19), only shows up for a couple of streams

SoupForEloise

WaterMunch – character pronouns she/her

ZombieCleo

Kestrels (cash money)

GoodTimesWithScar – only shows up for a couple of streams

Guqqie

ImaShep – character pronouns he/they, first appears on Day 52 (Sept 19)

KyleEff – character name Kyle Foster

Martyn InTheLittleWood – part of V-Tuber lore

MythicalSausage

TheOrionSound – character name Oliver (pronounced "oli-VAIR") von Steel but still goes by Oli

Shubble – first appears on Day 52 (Sept 19), only shows up for a couple of streams

Kites (combat)

Aimsey – character pronouns they/them/any

Bekyamon – character pronouns any/all

CaptainPuffy – only shows up for a couple of streams

Eret – first appears on Day 53 (Sept 20)

Krowfang – character name Kuervo [surname spoiler] but still goes by Krow, character pronouns he/him

Reddoons – only shows up for a couple of streams but makes a couple of non-streaming appearances

Seapeekay – first appears on Day 53 (Sept 20)

Tubbo – only shows up for a couple of streams (streamed regularly before joining the QSMP in mid-August)

Nightingales (found family)

Apokuna – character name [spoiler, currently still unknown] but still goes by Apo, character pronouns he/him

ggAcho – character name Acho (Denholm), character pronouns star/he/they

Graecie

JojoSolos – character name Yoyosephinê but still goes by Jojo, first appears on Day 53 (Sept 20)

Michela DarkEyebrows – first appears on Day 2 (July 31)

Roscumber

WillowMVP – character name Will [surname spoiler], first appears on Day 20 (Aug 18)

Do I have to watch all the POVs to understand the storyline?

For the overall server lore, absolutely not! The event livestreams cover what you need to know:

Day 1 / July 30: The Factioning, or SMP Launch Day

Day 36 / Sept 3: In Too Deep – Chapter 2 starts here; foreshadowing up to this event starts as early as Day 26 (Aug 24) from Scott and Owen POVs, but they recap all the foreshadowing in that day's livestream to get everyone up to speed

Day 76 / Oct 13: The Rescue Mission – foreshadowing up to this event starts as early as Day 59 (Sept 26) from Owen POV, but many of the POVs involved are entwined with foreshadowing, so I'd recommend which POV you should watch for this event on a case-by-case basis; the event is technically skippable as a few people missed this event and had the context recapped to them afterward (i.e. at the next event)

Day 77 / Oct 14: The Revenge Raid – Chapter 3 starts here; occurs directly after Day 76

Day 93 / Oct 30: The Halloween event – this is a NoName event and has very little impact on the greater storyline, and can be skipped in the context of the overall server lore, but is a good watch for individual characterization and lore if you're into that

Day 112 / Nov 18: Final Wishes – Chapter 4 starts here; the plot twist in the event is later adapted into a special lore quest and is completed/revealed in some POVs AFTER Day 112 (since they couldn't make it to the event), and Martyn's Issue 3 of the Noisy Parrot newspaper also gives a summary of the revelations for those unable to complete the quest in time as a second backup option

Day 134 / Dec 10: The Finale

For individual character lore, you can just stick to a main POV and go from there. My recommended watch pattern is picking an individual character POV to go with the server lore all the way through, especially due to how server and individual character lore can often happen in the same livestream, so sticking to a singular POV to start out would give the most context.

For episode-watchers, I highly recommend watching the occasional casual VOD as well, because I've seen a few episode-only fans (for both Martyn and Owen, who currently have the most complete adapted series) say they're feeling a bit lost because they don't understand some of the background lore that contextualizes the situation.

Follow-up Posts

POV recommendations based on character lore intensity

POVs by accessibility

Plotline-by-plotline recap

General SMP resources

#pirates smp recap #isleposting #my post #pirates smp #scurvyblr #pirates smp ensemble

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blu-orb · 1 month

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Pantheon SMP Posting

okay so so so. we've been part of this massive mc rp server for a few years now and it's about to bump up to 1.20.1 and get a new server so now's as good a time as any to drop info

The Pantheon is/will be a fabric 1.20.1 modded minecraft server that is rp focused!!! It's got a ton of worldbuilding, and moderators that are totally willing to help you come up with a character or figure out how to tweak your character to fit the setting better!

The main gist of the setting is that gods are real, and impact your life in notable ways! There's other people around too, obviously, and creativity and innovation are encouraged!! A group of people even tried to make a train go around the server last iteration! (It had to be scrapped, but it was REALLY cool.)

We've got a ton of mods (60 optimization mods anyone?), but the big ones are Origins (and a ton of addons for it, one mod even makes custom origins and tweaks origins just for the server!), Create, and Spectrum! There's both Croptopia AND farmer's delight along with little extras, and waystones and backpacks for convenience! We've also got instrument mods and painting mods and customizable player models <3

You don't have to be restrained to just one character, either! We have the switchy mod, and you can have up to four characters!

Keep inventory STAYS on, and your character only dies if you decide they do! (Or if they REALLLYYY anger a god, but you'll know what you're doing and get warnings if you're getting into THAT territory, it won't be out of nowhere.)

The gods are so... :headfull:. If you have questions, ask away in our inbox! We'll gladly answer any questions people have, whether that be about lore or how the server's environment itself is!

If you want to join? Well... There's an application here!

#orb rambles #pantheon tag #minecraft #for the people who watch our skyposting #ceva's from here! this is the minecraft server ceva's in!

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hungwy · 7 months

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I’ve seen many people reblog a post which contains tweets that, in my eyes, amount to a single complaint that is only half true (but that I agree with for the most part). But anyway, here’s a longpost:

(tweet in question)

I think it’s mostly wrong to say FPS multiplayer “peaked” ("was most fun for the playerbase"?) with Source games in the way presented. Believe it or not, you can still join a server with 30 people playing on a user map with fucked up assets everywhere, and some of the 30 people playing will be 14-year-olds with bad mics getting mad at being spawn killed by someone with 20,000 hours in the game. In fact, there are servers like this in most Source games, including Garry’s Mod, TF2, and CSS and CSGO (but honestly I think TF2 is most representative of the above scenario). I just launched Valve’s community server browser and have found an unending list of silly-sounding servers for TF2: Minecraft trade, Murder at the Mannor, Zombie Escape, Medieval Mode, all full or near-full. I checked Garry’s Mod: SCP-RP, Zombie Survival, Clone Wars Roleplay, “Swamp Cinema”, 1980’s Mafia Roleplay, DarkRP (x20), again, all well-populated. Admittedly CS2 was mostly deathmatch servers (due to it being Source 2 and not Source and so missing a lot of plugins that would allow for “fun” servers), but CSS still had surf, bhop, minigames, and jailbreak servers still going and full. My server browser won’t show CSGO for whatever reason, but up until CS2 released I know for a fact that these silly ass servers still exist there too. The implication that these servers and their conditions are gone is wrong. You don’t want a server with the exact same conditions though, I think you want to relive the specific memories you’re having and feel happiness again. But maybe I’m going too far there.

How about this. I’ll give it to you, Dusk developer, that for you FPS multiplayer peaked with insane TF2 trade servers, but you also make boomer shooters for a living, so I think you’re biased towards enjoying an older generation of games anyway. Modern FPS games are fantastic and in their own ways contain a lot of fun. Modern games in general fill the spaces that, for you, TF2 servers filled. Have you seen Roblox minigames and Minecraft server plugins? They’re actually crazy and decently well made. I’m excited that kids have grown up in such a good environment for games. They have tons of options that we didn’t have back then. It’s awesome! Like, don’t let your nostalgia blind you to the fact that kids are having just as much fun as you now. TF2 and Garry’s Mod are not the be-all, end-all of FPS multiplayer fun. That sentiment I completely disagree with and think people should get over.

But like, how the hell does competitive gaming play into this? I truly don’t buy the wording of “Esports and competitive ranking ruined multiplayer”. It’s just not true. Not only are the servers you’re mourning still exist, they’re still well-populated and their “golden age” coincided with some of the greatest heights in competitive FPS gaming. You know what’s funny? When CSGO released in 2012, TF2 saw a drop of almost 10,000 average players. It recovered basically the next year. Besides a small dip in 2018, TF2 had held around 50,000 average players since its release, until 2019 where its average player-count has risen to about 80,000 players. Garry’s Mod wouldn’t peak in total concurrent players until 2015 and has had a dedicated core of players averaging around 25,000 since like 2013. Seriously, these are incredibly consistent player-counts throughout the release of Overwatch, PUBG, Fortnite, Apex, and Valorant. In fact, contrary to the tweeter's implicit assumptions, it seems like nothing much has changed, and that competitive gaming did not, at all, ruin or depopulate these “fun” spaces.

So, again, how does competitive gaming and esports play into this? Only thing I think is valid is the fact that a few popular modern FPSes don’t do the whole “community-hosted server” thing: Apex, Fortnite, PUBG, Valorant, and Overwatch all do not have native community-hosted server support. Which, to be frank, is bad for their competitive gaming scene too! Esports has ALWAYS used self-hosted servers for practicing to get better. I don’t know the argument for not having these sorts of things, maybe not developing the toolkit for these things is easier than developing them. IDK. But I agree that it is bad that many popular games don’t support this sort of thing. The “self-hosted netizen” is a category of person that’s been declining for a long time regardless of the effect of competitive first-person shooter games on the casual first-person shooter games self-hosted server market. But again, for the topic of the post, I think this is a completely nonsensical implication. As far as I can tell ALL Valve-made Source engine games have active and popular community servers still, and the popular games ALL have very populated servers with “fun” gamemodes and atmospheres. Competitive has grown very popular, yes. It's true. It's fun to compete, everyone knows it. But esports has taken very little if anything away from the casual playerbase of Source games.

(Also, for the record, during the actual multiplayer FPS golden age of the time, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 shooters, there were no self-hosted servers for us, and it was still the most fun anyone ever had playing casually on console. It was the age of trickshotting and montages, man! For the intent of this post that exact restriction counts as “keeping players from interacting with one another” yet these games, especially COD, were, uh… infamously social. Not to mention these games had competitive scenes alongside the casual scene perfectly fine.)

I think, really, ignoring the actual content of the tweet, these tweets are just about nostalgia for your childhood. Which is fine! You can miss things you used to do for fun and no longer do. Probably every human that’s ever existed has gone through this. I mean, again, it is kind of popular in current culture to be nostalgic. The 90s aesthetic, early 2000s media, retro games, super hero movies, cartoons being consumed by adults to a greater degree than ever, et cetera. I think to some extent the complaint itself isn’t like, a completely unclouded judgement of the Decline of The Beauty of Multiplayer Gaming throughout the years. The concrete complaints in those tweets seem both a little rose-tinted and unnecessarily doomerpilled to me. But like, regardless, it’s kind of your fault for not returning to these things, man. Go join one of those servers if you’re not busy being an adult with a job and friends and other obligations that may keep you from doing things that you’re not used to and have fun like you did in childhood. Or is that what's actually the problem…? I don’t know. A suggestion. I just think in the end the complaint isn't valid.

This post is long and I had a LOT of thoughts that I may have missed or chopped off at the incorrect time. I think the picture I'm trying to build has probably been communicated, though? Maybe I’m not considering something, maybe I overinterpreted implications, maybe the fact that the playerbase of TF2 and Garry's Mod being highly consistent for ten years or whatever is not indicative of anything I've said, but I hope regardless you understand that like, at least part of this tweet is weird to say in the ways I've attempted to untease. People young and old are still having crazy times in video games and esports has done, as far as I can tell, absolutely nothing to change at, ever.

Turning off reblogs because I have a feeling anyone who doesn't follow me might become annoying about this

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crystillyzed · 1 year

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at the rainbow's end // mysta rias

pairing: mysta rias x gn!reader

word count: 4.1k

genre: fluff, staff!reader, mutual pining, wingman elira

content warning(s): swearing, unedited

summary:

After nearly a year of hearing each other's voice, you finally meet him.

a/n: this was originally going to be released as my 100 follower celebration since i hit that a while back and to make up for the lack of event since i don’t have the time to host one. but with mysta’s graduation this past weekend, i didn’t want to keep this in my drafts since i’ve been working on this for like practically a year now.

this fox-dog man means so much to me, even though i can’t really catch his streams due to timezone differences, but he means So Much to me. i got back into writing because of luxiem, but he and shu were the ones who got me back into the swing of writing which is amazing bc i love writing. i just lost all the motivation to do so until i found them last year. even though he’s no longer in niji anymore or mysta anymore, i will keep writing for him. in fact, i actually have like 3 or so mysta works in the drafts lol

and speaking of writing, this is the first long fic i’ve written in 3-4 years. i’m considering crossposting this onto my ao3 as an alternative access to read longer fics bc ik how tumblr is poopy with loading long text posts. i’m a bit rusty when it comes to writing long fics, but i hope you’ll be able to enjoy this as much as i enjoyed writing this 🧡

links: luxiem m.l || main m.l || ao3 ver (if tumblr dies)

You twist your head from your phone back towards your monitor, displaying the Discord window showing your current private call with your blue dragon friend.

“Mysta’s WHAT?”

“Yeah, he’s coming along on the trip,” Elira laughed. “You didn’t know?”

“Apparent-ly! What the hell!! Luca, that motherfucker, I’m gonna beat his ass when I see him!”

She howls with laughter as you ramble on and on about how Luca told you everything about their planned trip but didn’t tell you about Mysta’s planned involvement. Once you’re done, she takes many deep breaths to calm down. “You should come with us! It’s gonna be fun. And, you’ll get to see him again.~”

You can’t really see each other’s faces, considering you’re both in a voice call. But god damn, you can hear the eyebrow wiggle in her teasing tone.

“I can’t,” you groaned, “I have finals when you’re there. As much as I wanna skip it, I really need to pass.”

“Damn, you can’t even get a referral from staff to get you here for a business meeting? Unlucky.”

“Can’t even do that anyway. I already told my professor that my trip’s been canceled, so now I have to take it.”

Though you’re not a liver for the company, you are, however, a staff member for the company. Specifically one of the staff in charge of promotions. Of course, you mainly focus on promoting EN and sometimes the other two now-merged branches. In fact, that’s how you got close to some of the livers.

As one of the staff promoters, you have to speak with the associated livers about PR stream offers and their convention appearance invites. Since you’ve been interacting with the livers the most, you’ve become friends with a few of them. Some namely Elira and Mysta.

Honestly, it’s not that you play favorites with the livers. You try your best to keep your relationships professional with them. But your bond with a specific fox-like man says otherwise.

You see, Mysta has been a joy to be around with. Although you haven’t met him in person yet, you have played some multiplayer games with him. Sometimes you check out the EN Minecraft server to see if the installed mods are working properly. Weirdly enough, almost every time you visit the server, Mysta is online. In fact, that’s how your not-so-business relationship started.

When you first entered the server, after double checking if no one was streaming at the scheduled hour, he was the first person you met. You thought you would run into Selen, Pomu, or perhaps Uki during your visit, but you were pleasantly surprised at his sudden appearance. Luckily, he was kind enough to show you around the server while teaching you some mods. With, of course, the trademark Mysta Rias experience packaged with sexual innuendos and teasing about. Well, except he didn’t go completely sexual considering it was your first time meeting him. He has some decency.

After that, you’ve run into him almost every time you visit the Minecraft server. Every visit eventually turned into hangouts, just you two (and sometimes another liver) chatting and building projects in-game. Soon enough, you and Mysta started to play other games together. You both played games such as Overwatch, Clubhouse, and sometimes League if you felt like torturing yourself for some reason.

Obviously, you had to keep the professionalism on both sides somehow. Your fellow staff members, especially some livers, noticed your close bond with the detective. So they usually send you to his DMs to discuss about any promotion offers involving him. Whenever you have your cameras on for a meeting, he somehow always flusters you with sudden flirtatious marks or something of the sort mid-conversation.

“Hello? Helloooooooo? Is someone there??”

Elira’s voice yoinks you out of your thoughts. Oh god, were you spacing out this entire time? How embarassing.

You clear your throat then respond as if you weren’t thinking of someone just now, “S-sorry, did you say something?”

“Oh my god. It’s that bad,” she mindlessly mutters.

Blink blink. “Huh?”

“Nothing,” she quickly retaliates. With a slight hum, she speaks again, “Since you’re gonna be stuck in hell… Want me to get you something? Like a souvenir or a limited edition thing? I literally have your address, man.”

Oh right, she does. Sometimes you and Elira send gifts to each other like figurines or plushies at random times.

“Nah, I’m good. Thanks for the offer, man.”

“Are you sure? I mean, I’ll still probably send some pics buuut… Y’know… Just saying…”

There she goes again, doing that thing where she wiggles her eyebrows even though you can’t see her fucking face right now. Goddamn it, why did you tell her about your… thing with Mysta? You should’ve known that she’s NOT going to let it go.

You groan, “Just. Just surprise me.”

“That’s so vague! Do you know what that means?”

“Yeah? So? Surprise me.”

“Man… You have no idea how much power you just gave me.” She cackles for the next few seconds, making you start regretting your decision. “Okay, I’ll surprise you. Just don’t forget you asked me to, alright? And no complaining!”

“Okay, alright, fine! I won’t complain! Jeez… Now get to bed, nerd, you have a flight tomorrow.”

“Sheesh, what are you, my mom?” You both chuckle at her remark. “Okieee~ I’ll go pass out now, I guess. Good night!”

“Good night, Ewiwa. Have a safe trip.”

And you both leave call. Well, maybe you should get to sleep too. It’s getting super late, after all.

—

Mysta stares at Elira across the table in disbelief. “Finals? Of all times? Bruh…”

“Haha, yeah! Super uncool and lame and not something I have to worry about soon,” his penguin colleague beside him laughs with a dreadfully crazed look in her eyes. She anxiously reaches out for her soda and starts drinking rapidly.

“Wh— it’s not like I can control it or anything. Shit happens!”

“I know, it’s just…” he drawls off as his gaze lowers to the table. Admittedly, it’s difficult for him to hide his expression. So naturally, the two girls noticed his disappointment. Elira and Petra awkwardly look at each other, then to him, then back at each other.

“Hey, it’s okay, Mysta,” Petra says as she pats his back. “You can always see them next time! Like Nijifest!”

The dragon nods, “Yeah! Or you could see them the next time you take a break. Like going on another vacation or something.”

“If I have enough money for it,” he sighed. But he gives them a small smile to appreciate their attempts to soothe him.

Petra frowns. “If? Mysta, you’re literally one of the top livers in EN, like? Hello? Mr. One Million?”

“But I still don’t know when that’s gonna happen. Might as well be in a year or maybe like half a year or something.”

Elira’s eyes narrow. She quietly listens to their conversation, or bickering at this point, while taking some occasional sips of her drink.

For the past practically a year, Elira’s been one of the victims to both of your hopeless gushing.

She already knew about your friendship since you’ve talked a lot about it before. She knows the stupid hijinks and drunken confessions that you and Mysta told her about off stream. Her eyes closes as a confused thought crosses her mind, Seriously, how are you two not dating already?

Of course, she’s quite aware that the rest of Luxiem are both of your victims. Hell, when Elira’s alone with the other boys, it’s usually them talking about how astonishing that you and Mysta aren’t together. Sometimes, they make bets on who’s going to confess first. It’s obvious!

Even with the two going back and forth, practically becoming one with the background, she closes her eyes and hums in thought. Finals should be finished next week, she mused. Her visible eye opens as she takes a glance at the ashy haired male. But he’s been so busy lately that they haven’t spoken with each other…

The entire EN branch had a full schedule for the past few months. In fact, their schedule was so full that sometimes the livers couldn’t make their own streaming schedules nor stream in general. Mysta, of course, was no exception. As one of the most popular livers in EN, he’s one of the most busiest people she’s ever known. On top of that, you too have been busy recently too. You haven’t been able to hang out with him as of late despite being a staff member yourself. Life really likes to fuck anyone over, doesn’t it?

She could tell that you two haven’t been able to find the time to talk with each other. The staff picked up many projects that practically almost everyone is unavailable, and you were one of said unavailable members. The only times the livers could contact you was through Slack or by email for business inquiries. But things should be slightly slowing down, for now that is.

Although, it would be nice to have you two meet each other once at the same time, even if it’s a coincidental encounter.

Wait a minute…

A devious smirk lifts her lips, her eyes glinting with mischief in mind. She chuckles to herself as she entertains the thought. Hell, it even looks kinda creepy to the other patrons. ESPECIALLY to her coworkers who’s now staring at her with confusion and a hint of fear.

“…Elira? Are you okay?” Petra asked the dragon.

“Hm?” She blinks out of her thoughts as the penguin’s voice pulls her back into reality. Elira stares at her and Mysta, who also looks a bit dumbfounded, before grinning at them. “Oh, don’t worry about it. Just thought of something.”

Blink blink. “Like what?” Mysta asked this time.

Again, she lets out a chuckle and flicks her wrist to wave off the concern. “Like I said! Don’t worry about it! Y’all will see it eventually.”

Soon enough, the waitress arrives with their orders. Elira turns to face her and helps her with the food. On the other side of the table, the two livers tilt their heads in confusion and eventually give each other an unknowing look as the table is served.

—

You lie in bed snuggled underneath your covers, but the lights are still on as you scroll through Twitter on your phone.

It’s been about a couple weeks since your call with Elira. She’s been sending you updates, videos, and pictures of the group’s adventures in Japan. Sometimes, she’d call you before going to bed to tell you what happened during the trip in case it was a story she couldn’t explain over text. Of course, there were times when another liver like Reimu and Nina would join in the call and give you the tea. As much as you wished you wanted to be there while dying in exams, you felt warm as you saw the livers enjoying themselves on their vacation.

Then, you noticed how fast the month flew by. Eventually, it was time for the livers to fly home and say goodbye for a while. They all had different flights, obviously, but there was a specific person who didn’t leave the country yet.

You were looking on Twitter while watching the members’ story time streams on a pop-up viewer. Although, you didn’t see Mysta’s waiting room or tweet indicating his return to streaming yet.

Suddenly, you remembered why.

“He wants to stay back for a bit,” Elira answered over the sound of her packing. “Dunno why, but I don’t blame him. He was in Japan for work last time.”

That he was. Though disappointing it is that you can’t hang with him for a while longer, at least he’s having fun.

“Oh, remember the thing I asked you about?”

She asked you something? When?

“What thing?” You asked.

“Uh… The souvenir thing?”

Oh shit, you forgot about that. And apparently, she noticed your forgetfulness as indicated by her laughter.

“I got you something,” Elira continued, “but I’ll send it to you when I get back.”

“Why not now? You can just ask headquarters to send it to me.”

“It’s not something in a box though.”

You blinked in confusion, unanswering.

On the other end of the line, you heard her chuckle, “You’ll see.”

Your brief conversation did, in fact, make you scared. Although it’s Elira, your local dependable dragon, sometimes she can be as unpredictable as… well… the rest of Nijisanji. Not just EN, but Nijisanji in general. Remember that one time you watched her stream where she suddenly jumped into a hole in that Forest collab? Yeah…

Now, some time has passed since the trip and she’s been home for about almost a week. It’s something not in a box, right? So what’s taking her so long? Is it digital? Or did she fuck up somewhere with the delivery?

Currently, you’ve been juggling schoolwork, personal work, and work-work. Needless to say, it’s been a stressful time, especially around this type of year. Seriously, why is everyone so goddamn busy around this time? Idle thoughts aside, you’ve also been anxiously waiting for Elira’s souvenir. For the past week, you’d constantly check your phone and your PC for any email or DM from Slack and Discord with Elira’s name attached to it. Every time you get DM’ed or emailed, it’s always been another liver or staff member whose name doesn’t start with Elira and end with Pendora.

But hey, at least you got funny memes from Luca and Mysta in the mean time!

Honestly, at this point, you might as well just give up. Maybe she did run into issues, or she just forgot.

You let out a sigh as you refreshed your feed for the umpteenth time tonight, accompanied by the ghost’s voice eminating through your speakers. Yet suddenly, a notification banner from Discord slides down onto the screen.

Elira Pendora

SURPRISE!!!!

Oh.

Huh.

So she didn’t forget??

Confused yet astonished at the same time, you pull down your notifications bar and tap on the DM to see what she sent.

As the iconic Discord logo pops up on your screen, it eventually loads your conversation with Elira. When you look past your previous chat, a message larger than it should be fills about a third of your screen.

A plane ticket to London next week. Seat number and all. And most notably, it has your name.

…

“HUH?”

You frantically tap on the textbox and type.

You

GIRL

WHAGT THE FUCK IS THIS

Elira Pendora

your souvenir! ☺️

You

WDYM SOUVENIR THATS NOT EVEN RELATED TO JAPAN??? 😭😭😭😭

also

HOW DID YUO GET MY NUMBER??? AND MY EMAIL????? :monkas:

Elira Pendora

I had to pull a few strings with staff

just normal coworker things

You

:thonk:

“normal”

Elira Pendora

but like you should go!!!

I didn’t go through all that just for you to not see him

and you really needed a break so 😎

You

??????

but hes Still in japan?????

Elira Pendora

yeah but he’s flying back home next week

I asked him earlier and had to like try to figure out how to get you to meet him at the same time

or like

around the same time 😌

You

man idk if i should thank you or yell at you

Elira Pendora

LMAO EITHER WORKS IT’S OKAY MAN

better get ready!!!

You

wait what about the hotel

Elira Pendora

what hotel? ☺️

i’m sure he wouldn’t mind letting you stay for a few days tbh

and yes I will also pay for your return trip

You

BUT YOUR LEN FUNDS……

Elira Pendora

I KNOW 😭😭😭

but it’s worth it! go get your man bitch!!

but :thonk:

I think I’ll try to pass out now since I have something scheduled tomorrow soooo

GOOD NIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!

You

gn ewiwa :D

Well! Looks like you have a trip to prepare for.

—

The gray haired detective lounged comfortably in the AirBnB’s living room, resting on the sofa as he scrolled through Twitter. He let out a chuckle here and there, sometimes full on laughing whenever a funny meme popped up on his timeline.

“Meesta!” Elira called out to him from the kitchen island.

He turned around to look at the unusually giddy dragon. Confused, he asked, “What’s up?”

“When are you heading back?”

“Uh…” Pulling out his phone, he quickly went through his gallery to find a screenshot of his ticket. Once he found it, he examined the ticket for its boarding time and date then put it away. “In like a couple or so weeks. I thought I told you?”

“I don’t think you did,” she answered.

She motioned him to give her the device, or at least show her the screen. Of course, he complied. Though insane she is, he does have immense respect for her and Lazulight. Mysta stood up from his seat and approached her. Once in the kitchen area, he flipped his phone towards her, letting her singular visible eye take a peek.

Elira hummed as she inspected the ticket details then pulled back. “Cool. Thanks man!”

She walked away from the kitchen, carrying a glass of water upstairs leaving him even more confused.

It’s been three weeks since his unusual encounter with Elira. He sits idly at a bench by a luggage conveyor in the airport, waiting for his bags to unload from the plane. While waiting, he leans back into his seat and lets out an exhausted sigh. Luckily, no one is seated beside him, so he could just take up all the space on this uncomfortable bench. Still, he couldn’t help but reminisce onto their conversation.

Was she planning something? Was she just curious? What was she cooking?

Now, he’s back in the dreaded land of England, land of the beloathed. He pulls out his phone and immediately checks Discord. The EN server is lively as always, everyone’s practically home but the sense of energy radiates from the screen despite being digital. Like any other liver, he hops in the conversation a bit, sometimes memeing around with the others in the general channel.

Although, he noticed that your icon hasn’t appeared at least once since he landed. He was even paying attention to the top left corner of his screen for a red dot indicating your message. Normally, you’d send him a meme or something to see while he’s asleep or busy. But strangely enough, you haven’t yet. Maybe he should send you something? Or maybe call?

Mysta continues to catch up and reflect on the livers’ vacation in Japan on the server, his attention eventually caught by a familiar bag on the conveyor.

Welp. Looks like he’ll call you later.

—

Thank god Elira had the brain cells to make sure your flight isn’t after his own. Of course, she had to take in account about the flight times since you’re both literally across the globe from each other going to London. To avoid missing him right after landing, you were booked super early into the morning. But sometimes, there’s a possibility that you might be too early when he lands. And, unfortunately, that seems to be the case.

“He lands around midnight,” Elira told you on phone prior to checking in. “So you should be a biiiit early.”

Yeah, by like, 2 hours.

Man, what the hell are you supposed to do for two whole hours? Well, at least you have your phone AND your luggage. You could even people watch in the lobby. But that’s 2 hours!

What’s even more fucked up is that you can’t really use your phone unless you find the wifi. But airport wifi is kinda shitty, especially in England of all places. Talk about a British debuff.

You let out a heavy sigh and collapse into your seat. Napping is out of the question, even though you’re still kind of tired from the flight. Don’t wanna risk missing him by a smidgen, of course. So you ended up roaming around the airport for a while, getting yourself some drinks and snacks to keep you occupied while waiting for your friend. Luckily there were plenty of places to lounge while waiting, so you found a place to sit and enjoy your haul of snacks while waiting.

You did get to connect to the public wifi to look at some memes, but again, it’s the airport wifi. With how slow your phone’s been loading, you eventually disconnect yourself from the wifi after moments of mindless scrolling.

But then you realized something.

You have absolutely no idea what gate he’s in.

Panicked, you scramble to pick up your bags from your side and stand up. Shit, did Elira tell you what airline he took? God, having data in another country would be so helpful. There’s absolutely no way you’re gonna reconnect to the public wifi, it’s too damn slow! If you did have data, you’d look back to your DMs and scrub through your brief conversation from last night.

With a quick glance at your phone, the clock flashes briefly on the screen. 9:20pm, that means his flight’s arriving in less than an hour. Oh shit.

Immediately, you pace briskly throughout the terminals. As you scrounge through the crowds just to take a good look at the terminals, you ask staff for international flights from Japan along the way to help narrow down as much as possible. Throughout the search, you occasionally checked the clock on your phone. 9:40? Shit, his flight should be here now or soon.

“Mysta!” You suddenly shout, passerbys looking at you strangely as you start calling for his name. Your luggage rolls and bumps against the crevices of the floor, bags jostling as you promptly continue your search throughout the terminals. “Mysta Rias!”

Meanwhile, in the same area…

An ashy gray haired man stands in front of the carousel, waiting for the rest of his bags to drop onto the conveyor belt. He pulls out his phone from his pocket, taking a quick glance at his notifications and Discord. His mouth lowers into a frown, his brows furrowing in worry as he notices the lack of notifications from you. Did they really fall asleep?

Clink-clang!

Sunset kissed eyes shift towards the carousel at the sound. Spotting his luggage on the conveyor belt, he walks over to his revolving baggage and lifts them onto the ground. Maybe he’ll shoot you a dm later when he gets home. The handle on his large case clicks as he pulls it up, soon dragging it on its wheels behind him as he heads towards the direction of the exit.

You continue running and searching for him, frantically calling his name throughout the terminal. Your head turns left and right as you look into the surrounding late night crowd, your gaze briefly analyzing each arrival for any hint of his gray hair or his tallness. As you remain standing in the middle of the hall, looking for him, you see a tall man wearing small shades on the bridge of his nose. Gray side hairs framing his face sway into the air as he lugs his bags from the baggage claim and towards the nearest exit.

Without a second thought, your feet starts moving towards him. “Mysta—“ you call. “Mysta!”

After seconds and minutes of searching for him, calling his name and pushing through the crowd as you chase after him. Just a little more…!

“MYSTA!”

And finally… Finally, you see him.

With a clear shout of his name, the gray haired man halts.

Bewildered, he looks left and right until he turns around to see you panting. His heart stopped as he stares at you astonishly. The ambience of the crowd and muffled intercom speakers drowned out as he zoned onto you.

He looked at you.

The person standing just centimeters away from him.

The person who he thought was someone he’d never meet face to face ever.

The person who helped him find a reason to keep going even in the darkest of times.

It felt like hours just staring at each other. It didn’t even feel like there was an ocean of people swarming about and passing by. Without a second thought, Mysta slowly approaches you as if he were to scare you off. As if he didn’t want to wake up, if he is dreaming.

As he gets closer and closer, you didn’t make a move. No, you merely stared at him with wonder and excitement im your eyes.

You both stood across each other, only a few centimeters apart. He blinks several times, even pinching his wrists to disprove his thoughts. But he felt a stinging pain on each part.

An airy huff somewhat resembling a laugh escapes from him. Relief washes over him, and he whispers with a smile, “…Hi.”

You smile back.

“Hi.”

#nijisanji #nijisanji en #nijien #luxiem #nijisanji x reader #luxiem x reader #mysta rias #mysta rias x reader #luxiem x you #luxiem imagines #nijisanji en x reader #— a simple dream // writing

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modelbus · 10 months

Note

YOOOO MODDLEE

yeah I did it again.

(Help I have a problem of disappearing into thin air)

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR PART THREE OF CUT CHAOS SHEBSJNSUH

you said you would write 500 chapters.. but like obviously exaggerating..? (Kiddinggg)

tho a few more couldn’t hurt..

juuuust saying if you ever feel like it I will eventually see it and it will eventually make my week. <3333

BUT THATS NOT WHY WE ARE HERE! (I’m sorry my requests are always so long and dramatic bro I just brain like that)

Actual request:

ok so like I knowww cut chaos started from rumours but like rumours are an easy way to start plot lines k? (Also I use she pronouns out of habit but they is pog too)

the friends in question: Tommyinnit (duh), Wilbur (moosic boi), Ranboo (generation loss trauma guy), Possibly Slimecicle?? I know he’s not someone you do requests for normally buttt if you’re okay with it that would be POG, or if slime is a no, tubbo!

SO a few months ago Y/N started working on an SMP with some minimal custom mods, some fancy texture packs, maybe some data packs, and its like this BIGGG project, BUT its not public and its taking a lot of her time, so she can only really do a few streams and most of the time because her schedule is so full its hard to work out streams with friends so, she is alone. with the internet being the internet people started to think something was up, some annoyed viewers made a few rumours and people kept making things up and escalating things until people were saying she did all sorts of horrible things to “lose all her friends” but one of the most popular theories was that she was emotionally abusing them (??? Internet wildin ig) she ignored them while mostly finishing the stuff for the smp, but decided to address it in a very- y/n way. Getting four friends to come to her house and hide slightly off camera while she made a purposefully bad apology video only for them to jump out at the end and her to stand up and be like “YALL REALLY THOUGHT I WAS SOME MASTER MANIPULATOR?! I’M JUST A FUNKY LITTLE CHAOTIC MINECRAFT GOBLIN N’ I’VE BEEN WORKING ON AN SMP THIS WHOLE TIME!! ITS GONNA BE SUPER COOL AND THESE FOUR PLUS ALOOOOT MORE PEOPLE ARE GONNA BE THERE I’M POSTING THE CREATORS SOON AND ITS LAUNCHING IN A MONTH!, SO STOP ASSUMING I’M A BAD PERSON AND GET PUMPED BITCHES!” something along those lines, maybe at the end a little peek at what people are responding with. (Obviously no pressure, but like id be cool) (thanks for considering deity of the busses and models.)

HOW WE LIKING THE SILLIES?!?

P.S I’m not always an angst gremlin (just most of the time..) - ✨🌌🌙 Annon

I DO BE LIKING THE SILLIES (and thank you for elevating me to the level of deity, my ego has been inflated)

Pairing: Cc! Wilbur, Tommy, Ranboo, Charlie Slimecicle x Gn!Reader (platonic)

Roaring Rumors

Life was all about sacrifices.

Or, that’s what you keep telling yourself when you’re up at 1AM working on your server. Putting together an SMP is harder than it sounds; texture packs, data packs, comparability, world-building, even the (seemingly) simply act of contacting people to play on it. For the amount of time you spent on your computer, your hands might as well be part of your keyboard.

Sleep wasn’t the only thing you sacrificed. Streaming, even just fun ones with your friends, had quickly became rare. Although you loved to hop on a call while coding still, your online presence had severely receded.

You just keep telling yourself that sacrifices are necessary. That the payoff would be worth it.

And it really would be, but you just had to get there first. Which was proving harder than you had thought.

At the very least, you still had your friends. Wilbur sitting silently on call with you while you work, Tommy dragging you out of your room, Ranboo always willing to get excited over your progress. Every day you woke up with a text from your groupchat—typically Charlie—just filling you in on the latest internet trend by a meme.

Today, your news comes from Wilbur and Tommy.

“I think they’re canceling you.” Wilbur says casually while you’re in the midst of detailing the hunger bar for a texture pack.

“Ooh, you’re a wrong’un!” Tommy yells in the background of Wilbur’s side of the call.

The three of you had been idly chatting while each doing your own thing. Wilbur and Tommy were engaged in some Twitter competition, as far as you know.

“Canceling me for what?” You ask, deciding to ignore Tommy’s shouting.

“Existing, I think.” Wilbur answers.

“So the normal.”

“The normal.”

Although the conversation stops there, you can’t help yourself. Later, during one of the few hours you dedicate to getting sleep to stay alive, you pull open Twitter on your phone. Your last tweet was nearly two weeks ago, so it’s been a minute.

But you just want to make sure nothing horrible happened while you were busy. You’re a content creator, this is normal. Definitely. You definitely aren’t just justifying this so you can do it.

You swipe through tweets, heading to trending and searching your name. Tweets load, making your mouth run dry. Wilbur wasn’t joking.

All you can do is scroll, reading as the messages get wilder and wilder. From people saying they were missing you to theories on why nobody was streaming you. Each one seemed considerably more implausible, and before you know it you’re glaring at your screen like it’s to fault.

Some thought you had grown apart.

Some thought you had a falling out.

And, apparently, a lot thought you were emotionally abusing them. Or, depending on the tweet, manipulating them.

Quite honestly, you didn’t even know how they got the idea. The long threads of explanations did nothing but send you into a spiral, biting your bottom lip so hard that it bleeds.

You were so close to finishing the SMP. It needed just a few things, then you'd be able to start scheduling to get it up and running. You didn't have the time nor mental capacity to deal with whatever the fuck is going on right now.

Is it a good choice? Maybe not. But do you still ignore the accusations? Hell yes.

By the time you get even closer to finishing the preparations for your SMP, you've come up with the perfect plan to address the (quite stupid) rumors. It'll be a two-in-one; you address the rumors and announce the SMP at the same time.

"How long do I have to lay on this floor?" Tommy asks, stretched out behind your chair.

"Nobody asked you to lay on the floor." Wilbur points out, standing next to your computer. Charlie, on the other side, laughs.

"Yeah man, you wanted to be down there."

"Besides, I'm doing great down here!" Ranboo chimes in.

You roll your eyes, grinning. "I'm about to start stream, so it won't be for much longer. Just wait for my cue, yeah?"

Tommy grumbles, but shuts up. You take that as your chance to start the stream, switching it off your waiting screen and waving to the camera. Your chosen stream title has brought in a bit more than your usual casual steam view number, "Talking about some serious stuff," leading people to believe there will be drama. And if it's drama they want, it's drama you'll give.

"Hello, hello!" You smile, leaning back. "So I've decided to talk about some things. Namely, the Twitter shit. I am so sorry for everything, and I mean that. A lot. Sincerely. There's meaning in it."

Tommy snorts, and from the corner of your eye you catch Wilbur kick him to shut him up.

"What am I sorry about?" You ask rhetorically, acting like you read it off of chat. "Oh, you know. People have been saying all types of stuff. The things about me manipulating my friends?" There's a pause while you let that sink in. "So, I'm sorry."

It's a purposefully shitty apology, but you sigh and act like its heartfelt for a few moments, nodding towards chat. Their messages are mostly confused, especially because it isn't one emote-only.

"Sorry you guys are so gullible!" You shout, and Tommy practically tackles you.

Wilbur's the one to fix your chair, Ranboo and Charlie appearing next to you within moments.

"You guys really thought this one could manipulate me? The master?" Charlie asks the stream, pointing at you.

"Yeah!" Tommy shouts, way too energetic for someone who complained five minutes ago about being on the floor. "We're the master manipulators! Get fooled!"

"I, for one, haven't manipulated anyone-" Ranboo starts, but Tommy slaps a hand over his mouth and nods empathetically.

"Yeah, I don't know what you guys were thinking, but I've just been playing fucking Minecraft for the past few months nonstop." You laugh.

"Nonstop. It's a problem." Wilbur nods.

"It is not a problem!" Pause. "Anyways, I made an SMP! And that's where I've been! Not because I've been manipulating my friends or some shit, stop being dumbasses."

"It'll be super cool!" Ranboo adds in helpfully.

"These four-"

"That's us!" Charlie points around at himself, Wilbur, Tommy, and Ranboo.

"-will be on it, plus a lot more. It'll be posting those people soon! As in, check your Twitter obsessively guys! The SMP will be in about a month, too, so get fucking excited! I want to see some hype!"

"WOO!" Tommy screams, making everyone cringe at having their eardrums ruptured.

"So that's all I wanted to talk about I think. Anything to add, guys?" You glance around at the four surrounding you with a grin.

"One thing." Charlie nods, leaning in really close. "I have a secret. This SMP, it's actually-" He hits your end stream button mid-sentence. "And that's how you keep 'em interested."

Ycgmaenthusist NEW SMP NEW SMP NEW SMP NEW SMP

Mammalianeighingreflecenthusiest We are dumb as fuck aren’t we

Poabsenthusiest i will RIOT IN THE STREETS if any of yall be mean to MY STREAMER -> Cmwylenthusist FR I GOT TWO FISTS AND A CAUSE

#dsmp #mcyt #mcyt imagine #tommyinnit x reader #tommyinnit x you #wilbur soot x reader #tommyinnit #wilbur soot x you #wilbur soot #ranboo x reader #ranboo imagine #ranboo mcyt #ranboo #ranboolive #charlie slimecicle #charlie slimesicle x reader

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hermitzine · 7 months

Text

HERMITZINE FAQ

What is Hermitzine, anyway?

Hermitzine is a fanzine, a compilation of illustration, comics and writing based around the long running Minecraft SMP Hermitcraft, with works focusing on the creative projects, collaborations and interactions the creators on the server (aka Hermits) share with their audiences. For each edition, we (the Hermitzine mods) announce the theme we're running with this edition, open applications, and pick our roster of collaborators from the artists and writers who want to be involved.

Once our line up of collaborators has been selected, we invite all the contributors for the zine to our discord server, and the process of making the zine pieces starts! Contributors brainstorm an idea for a piece they want to do, and run it past our mods for approval, then work on it over the course of about 2 months (to make sure people have time to put together something they're proud of without having to ignore things like sleep, school and work). Hermitzine #9 has a little bit more going on with collaboration and format, but we go through that in the application form.

What's the timeline of events for this edition?

The current schedule for Hermitzine #9 is as follows:

March 02 — Applications open at midnight GMT

March 16 — Applications close at midnight GMT

March 23 — Acceptance / Rejection emails go out

March 30 — Check in 1 (initial sketches / ideas)

April 13 — Check in 2

April 27 — Check in 3

May 11 — Check in 4

June 01 — Final pieces are due

Late June / early July — Zine is published

More questions and answers below the cut! (A lot more. Be glad we added the cut).

How do I apply?

Fill out the form (we'll be posting them very soon)! We have a writers application form and an artists application form, both will be open between the 2nd and the 16th of March.

In your application, you'll be answering a few questions and sharing 3-5 of your best pieces, to let us know what you're about as a writer and/or artist.

Then all you have to do is sit tight and wait for our email on March 23rd to find out if you're in!

Who can apply?

We have three requirements: 1) you’re 15 years or older, 2) you can speak enough English to communicate about deadlines and other important zine-related discussions, and 3) you have a Discord account, as that is how all communications with contributors will be made. A free account is fine — we don’t send files through Discord itself, so there’s no need to buy Nitro.

What do I need to do / have to apply?

For all of our applicants, we ask for a small portfolio of 3-5 pieces of your best finished work. We ask for a small portfolio to keep our views of your work focused on what you think is you at your best. These portfolio pieces don’t necessarily have to be Hermitcraft related, or even belong to a fandom. As long as it’s your personal work and you’re proud of it, we want to see it.

For writers: we ask that the 3-5 works you submit are around 3,000 words maximum, since that is the vague limit you will have to work within the zine. You can submit excerpts from longer works as long as you specify that somewhere within the application piece.

Do I need to be well-known or have a large social media following to be accepted?

Not at all. Social media following does not factor into whether or not you’re accepted. You could have one follower or one thousand — either way, we’re looking at your portfolio. You don’t even need any social media at all! We ask for social media handles in the application in case we want to check out more of your work beyond your portfolio.

What do you look for in the portfolio judging criteria?

We look for several things when judging portfolios. For artists, the list includes:

Your ability to finish zine-quality pieces (fully-rendered, backgrounds, not rushed-looking, etc)

Hard skills: composition, color theory, anatomy, perspective, shape language, etc

Comic paneling skills, if applicable

Solid illustration styles that interest us and we want to see more of

For writers, the list includes:

Your ability to finish zine-quality pieces (complete and concise work, with a full narrative if applicable)

Good grasp on writing basics (grammar, punctuation, spelling, sentence flow, etc)

Solid writing styles / voice / characterization

Ideas and we find intriguing, interesting, or otherwise would like to see written in full

If either of these lists are daunting to you, don’t worry! We are very interested in people who are eager to try new things and push themselves as artists and writers. We’ve accepted many people before based on their apparent eagerness to improve and collaborate with others.

We also like applicants with a unique or unusual approach to artmaking. Some examples include: traditional media, 3D modeling, photo manipulation, graphic design, typography, poetry, etc. While these skills are fun to include, don’t worry — not having them won’t detract from your chance of getting accepted.

Can I apply for both an artist and a writer position?

Yes you can, but if you’re accepted, we’ll choose you for only one of the two options. For example, if you apply to both and we accept you for writing, we expect you to create a written piece for the zine only, no illustration. This decision will be revealed to you in the acceptance email you get once the application period is over.

Can I participate if I’m a traditional artist?

Absolutely! All we require is that you have a scanner in order to submit high-quality images of your work. We work around the 300dpi range, and unfortunately photos taken with phones or webcams usually aren’t high-quality enough for us to include.

How many artists / writers do you accept?

The number of participants (artists and writers combined) we accept depends on several factors — the most important of which are how many mods we have working on the zine and how much we decide we can handle. Historically, our acceptance count ranges anywhere from 35 to 75 participants, with our most recent editions hitting numbers closer to the top of that range.

How do I know my application was submitted correctly? What happens if the link to my portfolio doesn’t work?

If you don’t receive any word from us from the time you submitted your application to when the acceptance and rejection emails go out, then congratulations, your application was submitted correctly! If something is wrong with your portfolio, like if one or more of your links don’t work, we typically request access — which will then appear as an email in the inbox of whatever email is linked to the drive you shared your portfolio from. If the issue persists, you might receive a private message requesting access from one of the mods on a social media handle you included in your application. If you don’t receive an email or message from us, then everything with your application works.

Do you guys send rejection emails?

We do. If you apply to Hermitzine, you’re going to receive an email from us regardless of whether you’re accepted or rejected. If you’re rejected, we give you the opportunity to ask for feedback with your portfolio.

I applied but never got an email. What’s going on?

If you haven’t received an email even though we’ve announced they’ve been sent out on our social media accounts, please check your spam folder to see if it accidentally went there. This has happened a lot in the past!

If I’ve been rejected from an edition of Hermitzine, does that mean I can never apply again?

Absolutely not! You can apply to any edition of Hermitzine you’d like, from now until forever, regardless of the results of previous applications. We love seeing friendly names show up in applications!

Do people who have participated in prior editions of Hermitzine have a higher chance of getting accepted to the newest edition?

No. Applicants who’ve participated in previous editions have the exact same chances at getting into the newest edition than any other participant.

What content is allowed in Hermitzine?

Requirements for a piece are only to feature Hermitcraft and/or the Hermits primarily, follow the theme, be SFW and not have any shipping content. That means that crossover content (ex: the Empires crossover) and hermit-adjacent people can be included, and that pieces can be about content from any season of Hermitcraft.

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sangoqueenkoko · 1 year

Text

VARIOUS

how and what they build in minecraft

headcanons

MAIN MASTERLIST

(other masterlists listed on main^^)

Summary: minecraft. you can make just about anything in that game. well what do some genshin characters make?

Warnings? Nope! But Wanderer’s and Xiao’s aren’t as long as the others because i don’t have them and i am not interested in getting them so i do not know what they are really like. sorry!

Contains: (in order) Kaveh, Alhaitham, Albedo (featuring Klee), Itto, Wanderer, Xiao and Diluc.

Mentions characters above, as well as Dori, Cyno, Tighnari, Jean, Kuki Shinobu, Nahida, Kaeya.

Modern AU!

Kaveh

- this man is a literal architect, so it is easy to say that he will do great. he can make a lot of things, and they look amazing.

- i can imagine he would try to recreate his ‘magnum opus,’ aka The Palace of Alcazarzaray, in the game. he even put chairs down for people to wait. because there aren’t any in genshin.

- if he could, he would so get some furniture mods to make the place really pop.

- he would and has, no doubt.

- give him a few ideas and a prompt and he will be away building within minutes.

- i can see him making a security system so that Alhaitham doesn’t come in and.. do anything.

- he is so independent in minecraft it is unreal, because he can’t get into dept, he is loaded with gold, diamonds, emeralds, etc.

- he would definitely build with those materials.

- if he was in a server or realm, he would definitely work with Dori, and they would hoard all sorts of loot, of course make The Palace of Alcazarzary again with emerald and gold, it may take time, but they’re so committed to it.

- has quarrels over discord with Alhaitham about him even coming near the premises.

- “Alhaitham?! Why are you here?! You better not take any of our stuff!”

- “hm” he was merely looking around, he was interested, but never made it known.

Alhaitham

- definitely a casual gamer, and his favourite game mode is survival, or if he’s feeling adventurous, hardcore.

- if on creative, he’ll probably make a library with actual readable content, it’s a lot of work to do, but it’s something he’s definitely willing to commit to.

- ahem

- if on a new survival world, with Kaveh of course, they would have to share a house until they get enough resources to split and make an area their own.

- however, Alhaitham would make a normal, somewhat aesthetically pleasing house, and Kaveh… would either make a hole in the ground so that mobs won’t find him, or make a room in the house which is bigger than Alhaithams.

- “ugh, what now Alhaitham, can i not make my area of the house mine?”

- “i never said you couldn’t”

- but his face and tone did.

- if on a server or realm, he would go solo.

- definitely get shoo’ed away if he was near Kaveh and Dori’s place.

- he was only curious.

- definitely hangs out with Cyno and Tighnari in the jungle biome Tighnari insisted he and Cyno make their base.

- definitely has a dog that follows him around, and it goes by the name of Wafi, and so help anything that hits that poor creature, because Alhaitham will go full Feeble Scholar.

-also give him a chance and he would install an emerald weapon mod so that he can have his sword in game. sadly, you can’t attack with dendro.

Albedo (and Klee)

- Albedo is the redstone and potions master, no doubt about it and you can’t ever change my mind.

- if his world was expanded beyond, with complex things made, he would have to have certain permissions disabled for Klee who frequently visits his world, because he spends so much time on some things, the pride he holds for them all are obvious, and if something were to happen… uh…

- he has a world especially for Klee, where she blows things up until it reaches bedrock, and of course she tried to break the bedrock, but Albedo has to break it to her that it can’t be broken.

- “but you’re a scientist, surely you can break it!”

- “th-that isn’t how it works” he smiled as he spoke.

- he would test potions on Klee, the good kind, like night vision, leaping and others.

- on the topic of leaping, she would definitely have a place in Albedos main world full of rabbits, and would try to name them all Jumpy Dumpty.

- on a server or realm, Klee would have a piece of land all to herself so she can blow things up without it damaging everyone else’s areas.

- Albedo’s base is home to the Nether portal, so whenever others would come to the portal, they were always welcome to get some fire resistance potions or enchanted weapons, etc.

- oh, and as well as the End portal.

- he is the keeper of the Ender Dragon egg so that no one else loses it, he builds an entire hidden room for it that literally no one else can find.

- shares his base with Jean, he has the scientific side of it.

- she observes Klee too to make sure she doesn’t clash with others.

- Jean and Albedo are the owners of the server/realm.

Itto

- two words, cow farm

- this man has as many cows as one could imagine, in his house, a cave, he lives with a cow named Ushi.

- of course still the Gang are there.

- they have their own houses, in a small town like area near a village, and they actually are at peace with them, they don’t take things from their chests.

- the worst they do is take their crops, but they do eventually plant more in its place.

- their best type of weapon is stone, mainly because they don’t have the best luck when it comes to mining, they either find iron or better but lose it after falling down a ravine or die from a mob

- especially in the Nether, they were a magnet for mobs.

- Itto has died the most in game out of them all.

- however, Kuki is the exact opposite, she is extremely lucky when it comes to mining and general in game experience, but is hesitant to share her things with the gang because of their luck and probably of forgetting where they put things. she doesn’t want to risk it.

- she learnt her lesson after she let Itto borrow her diamond pick axe to go and get some materials from their nearby mine, but he accidentally fell into some lava and lost everything he had on him.

- thus him begging Kuki for forgiveness, just like every other time.

- in a server or realm, Itto forgets to put some sources of light in places, so some mobs will spawn, he freaks out when creepers spawn, thus him not killing them, and thus a part of his home blowing up.

- i can see Itto fending off a creeper and it blows up in his storage room, and the chests are full of torches, thus making his game lag when they all drop, making Itto’s microphone audio cut out when the lag spikes.

- hey, his computer isn’t the best, but he’s saving up for a better one, trust me.

- he’s doing his best.

Wanderer

- he doesn’t have a set base, he has weapons, torches, food and a bed for his travels.

- sometimes camps in a cave when he doesn’t know where to go next.

- if he gets blown up or killed by something else in a cave or anywhere else, he will rage quit, and i mean rage quit.

- definitely the one to go to the end and find the boat that has the elytra, and uses it all the time.

- definitely doesn’t get lost, while trying to find the portal back.

- this goes for the server and realm too, if you see him glide past your base every now and then, then no you didn’t, he chooses not to hang out with anyone.

- but word spread around about the game and caught Nahida’s ears, so she joined and played with Wanderer a lot, her base is made of quartz and emerald, she even made a small base by hers for Wanderer for whenever he visits her.

- he doesn’t show it but he is grateful for it.

Xiao

- the sole reason why Albedo makes the leaping potion, Xiao has satisfaction of sneaking behind mobs and attack them.

- the mob he has tension with most is the enderman, as they can both sort of teleport, even if Xiao uses ender pearls for the skill.

- he solely comes out at night, and his base on the top of the highest mountain in his world, even if it’s small, it’s a place he can hide until night time, however, this doesn’t work well in a server or realm when others want to sleep and pass the night, Xiao is out hunting for loot, especially endermen.

- has come across Wanderer on his travels, they sometimes travel together, but they don’t communicate to each other, only on some occasions.

- “Huh! You!”

- “Hmph” Wanderer muses.

Diluc

- on his own, he is fully capable of taking down pillagers and over taking the woodland mansion to make his own, and always makes secret rooms despite it only him playing on the world, these rooms contain valuable look, this look containing many fire aspect weapons, especially swords.

- when he first started this world, with it being survival, he struggled to find food and make it edible.

- but when more steady on his own, most definitely never runs out of food as he has plenty of farms to work on.

- and most of them are automated.

- like Xiao, prefers and goes out a lot during the night.

- he tested himself and put his game mode on hard, the mansion is by a decent size village, so he protects it all he can, even with iron golems.

- he definitely trades with the villagers too, and of course gets the ‘master’ trade level on each one too, and STILL has stacks of materials left.

- this guy isn’t scared to go to bedrock level and risk himself to get materials. Like Alhaitham, he has dogs, not mentioning them because of how many.

- oh, i forgot to say, Kaeya visits. Diluc isn’t happy (when is he ever) about this, but instead of banishing him from the premises, he has general rules, which Kaeya does respect and follow, thus them both getting along… sort of.

- in a server or realm, Kaeya does visit, but still respects rules and boundaries of everyone else, he stays with Jean, Albedo and Klee.

- apart from that, Diluc has enough food for everyone in the in game world if in need of emergencies.

- believe me when i say this, i can see him trading with Dori and Kaveh frequently, food for high valuables.

- even if they don’t really ever meet, all three of them are on good terms.

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aquaquadrant · 6 months

Note

Hello! I've been told to ask you this =D

What do you think about Jimmy as a minecraft player, what is he?

It's for a project =3

ooh a project, how fun :0

i should preface this by saying i’m not the BEST person to give this opinion, cuz despite how much i write jimmy, i uh… don’t actually watch his pov? i haven’t seen any of empires (except the hermit’s crossover in s2), i don’t watch his streams, and i don’t watch the one-off vids he posts on his channel. most of my knowledge of jimmy comes from his appearances in other pov’s life series episodes and how ppl portray him in fandom.

howEVER, that said, i’m curious how my interpretation would line up with other ppl’s. i view minecraft players as generally fitting into a few broad categories- tho there can def be overlap between them or a jack-of-all-trades situation. and this prob applies more to people who actually play minecraft professionally (ie. ‘play video games for a living’) than the casual player (such as myself hagshdha).

builders: have a creative eye and practiced skill in building to the point where they can, generally speaking, throw down a decent build on the fly (things that require a lot of planning/detail work often drafted in creative mode first). have good understanding of achieving a certain shape and color with their block placements. may or may not include terraforming ability. generally drawn to the game’s building aspect and spend a lot of time/care making things look good.

redstoners: have an adequate amount of base knowledge for how most redstone components work and interact with each other, tho they may occasionally still use tutorials or take inspiration from others (can only reinvent the wheel so many times). usually capable of making simple redstone machines/contraptions on the fly. generally drawn to the game by the possibility of farms and automation. some take it to extreme game-breaking lengths (doc).

competitors: have highly-trained skill in areas such as PVP, parkour, and/or any other multiplayer server type minigame. think hypixel and MCC. this isn’t to say they don’t have their own solo worlds for building or other projects, or don’t participate in smps, but their main draw to the game initially was competitive multiplayer and it features heavily on their channels. to me, speed-runners/challenge-seekers are a subcategory of this.

explorer: this type doesn’t actually show up often in popular mcyt bc it’s a largely solitary- and in some ppl’s opinion, boring- experience. but these are the players that spend hours in their solo worlds just traveling around, mining out massive caves, or doing any other kind of repetitive grindy work as a manner of relaxation. some ppl really enjoy this aspect of minecraft and it’s a major draw for them. special mention for kurtjmac, a mcyter who’s spent 13 years and counting just walking to the farlands in an old version of the game (tho he does other things on his channel as well).

and now for what category i think jimmy fits best in (which again, doesn’t mean he can’t build or do other things). i don’t have a good name for it rn so i’m just gonna call it ‘the sillies’ (affectionate).

sillies: above all else, they’re here to have fun. most, if not all, of their content is on multiplayer worlds (both public servers and private smps), and on these worlds they are extremely social, making a concentrated effort to interact with others even if not legitimately roleplaying. high amounts of pranks and hijinks abound, as well as ‘committing to the bit.’ lots of videos feature them doing some kind of funny little challenge, game, or mod with their friends. again, that doesn’t mean they can’t engage w the other aspects of the game or be skilled in those categories, but generally, it’s not their main objective and not how they spend most of their time.

that’s what i’ve got! obviously u could split all of these into many subcategories, and your average player is gonna be fairly well-balanced. but for our pro cubitos, i think this is a nice way to categorizing things (and it at least makes sense in my mind).

#hermitcraft #empires smp #solidaritygaming #back in my day minecraft only had two genders: miner and crafter #(LMAOOOOOO)#ty for the ask it was neat to get my thoughts down on this

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caffstrink · 1 year

Note

do you have any tips on how to live off as artist professionally?

First of all art isn't always a viable option depending where you live. The only reason ive been able to live off art is because the american dollar is worth 5x more than the brazilian real so even if i didn't get many comms i could still get by with the few i had. and if that wasn't the case I'd pretty much be eating breadcrumbs off the floor like a pigeon.

1. Whore yourself out and draw fanart of every popular or trending thing to gather attention to youe art

2. Learn your platforms: learn how each websites algorithm works, learn what are the best hours to post, etc

3. I cannot stress enough how important it is to find your niche

4. Everyone is fake no one wants to be your friend, other popular artists will start following you the moment your following becomes good enough. They'll start to interact with you too and want to become mutuals in order to share followings/traction. If you can play into that you can get them to share your stuff as well, but honestly don't fall for it bc most of them shittalk other artists on their privs or personal servers and the stress isnt worth it

5. Draw nsfw if possible/if you're comfortable with. People who commission porn pay well and they often have very few options when commissioning stuff bc most artists don't accept porn commissions.

6. Accept being an artist is a hard job that doesn't pay really well. If you're freelancing on comms life's always going to be a tightrope, so i suggest trying to do professional work once in a while so you can at least have the security of a salary. Draw backgrounds, gestures, scenes, studies, and the likes, bc those are what companies will want in your portfolio

7. Depending where you live it's extremely hard to live off as an artist, and being an artist is often means a very difficult struggle with finances. It's a job that requires passion, and more often than not turning art in a job causes creative burnout and complete loss of spark for it. Ask yourself: why do you want to be a professional artist? Isn't it better to keep it as a hobby? Maybe a side gig if you need money? You can still pursue art even if you don't do it to earn money, and it doesn't make you any less of an artist. It's a difficult job, and you need to understand its not going to be viable at all times and sometimes you'll have to throw in the towel and do something else to survive and there's 0 shame in that.

8. Be professional and courteous with your clients. Don't be a doormat, but don't go around ghosting people or being passive aggressive or taking them for granted and never deliver any product. Doing art for money is a JOB. Treat it like such. Inform your clients about delays, or any issues that may come up.

9. Take care of yourself and by that i mean eat decent food, exercise your arms, get 8 hours of sleep and get some sun (or take vitamin D periodically if youre a basement dweller). This isn't some self care uwu shit, it's actual science that your body is a machine and not providing what it needs to function leads to issues, and some of those issues include affecting your mental health, and mental health issues include and are not limited to: anxiety, depression, burnout, loneliness, feeling like your art sucks, feeling unmotivated, feeling like you're a failure, etc. Same with physical: for the love of GOD you DON'T want wrist issues. You dont want carpal or ulnar nerve entrapment. Don't draw 24/7. Don't push yourself either. If youre feeling shitty its time to STOP. Just picture a shitty graphics card trying to run minecraft with 5 shaders and 10 mods at once on fullscreen with 60 fps. Thats you. Youre the graphics card

10. Don't be a bitch, don't get involved with drama. Can't be an internet artist if you get cancelled so don't try to start shit at any point in time. Don't be a shit person.

And from the top of my head thats it, hope you like eating plain bread 🍞

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mcyt-builds-contest · 6 months

Text

Scarland

Builder : Goodtimewithscar

Series : Hermitcraft Season 9

Propaganda : With the mascot being our lovely Queen Jellie, Scar's beloved pet and winner of Mojang's contest to get her into a part of the game, Scarland incorporates the whimsy everyone wishes Disney still had. The strip is populated by guests (including the hermits and default skins, inclusive of races and disabilities) making it lovely with flashing fake-creepers and even a street performer playing the drums. There are even cameos from the Empires crew and the infamous hero HotGuy! Feel free to visit the Trading Card Game arena, any of the stores selling snacks and drinks, and take pictures with the mascots distributing cute hats and balloons. At dawn and dusk, our lovely CEO of Scarland, Scar himself, welcomes guests and sends them off in the evening. You, too, can download the Hermitcraft map and visit Scarland yourself with any friends you would like to bring with you.

The Frost Citadel

Builder : TangoTek

Series : Hermitcraft Season 9

Propaganda : decked out is not only an incredible build on the OUTSIDE, with a great colour scheme and a lot of detail, it's also a hugely important build for the season in general - being the place most people would hang out for the last few months of the server - and importantly a redstone MASTERPIECE. how did this man create literally an entire game with a point buy system and effect cards and randomised threats in minecraft?! like this is vanilla. i think the only mod used was for the disc system and even then he was ready to run that without mods. on so many levels this is such a fantastic build.

Taglist! @10piecechickenmcnugget @cholioSUS @biro-slay @betweenlands @xdsvoid

#mcyt base contest #polls #hermitcraft

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piosplayhouse · 2 years

Text

Horse Isle 3: The Yandere Sim of Horse Games

(or, an extended study in how to hate your own playerbase as much as humanly possible)

(or, or, tldr there's pretty much no updated information on just how ridiculously bad this game is so here's a writeup on how I got banned and all the subsequent information I found during my time playing for documentation's sake)

Part I. The Backstory

My beloved followers will know that a few months ago I began playing Horse Isle 3, a horse-raising MMO surprisingly released in the year of our horse 2019 despite its 1997-era website and Runescape-esque graphics. Some of my play through (mostly just horse pictures) is chronicled in my tag #homophobic scum horse chronicles ¹ if you want to see how drippy my horses were before they killed me.

Now, don't get me wrong. I have endless respect for small teams of game devs that manage to create insanely impressive products-- which HI3's elaborate real-genetics breeding system, its main draw, certainly is. Coding is hard, modeling is hard, moderation is hard. Tip a coin to your local small indie teams that work hard to make incredible art.

However, HI3 is far from an admirable success story about a small dev team that triumphed over its obstacles.

The game is known for a variety of things, chief among them being the staff's rampant homophobia (which has earned it the moniker "the homophobic horse game"), hilariously uncharismatic mods (to the point where one of the main moderators, Connie, is mentioned by NAME in the majority of poor reviews of the game), the dev team's unrepentant rejection of criticism, and racism with a side of downplaying war crimes.

(Screenshots taken from Sitejabber, here)

Now, it's marketed as a game for ages 8+, which, as I've briefly talked about before, is unfortunately a rarity in today's hostile internet climate. I grew up on a variety of typical child friendly MMOs like ye olde Pixie Hollow and PetPet Park, and truly lament that so many of these have been shut down over the years. As such, I have no issue with strict rules or word filters in games, with the caveat that they are effective and genuinely intended to keep people safe. Kids are naive, and can and will say things that they shouldn't (I, for example, got kicked from a Minecraft server when I was 8 because I posted in chat that my mom told me sex wasn't a bad word. things happen). Filters are a very appropriate tool to aid manual moderation of chat features, especially in an environment where mistakes will be made.

However, HI3's, as shown below (words that are forbidden from chat are marked in red), are... questionably selective.

(Screenshot taken by Alice Ruppert, from here)

This appears to be attributed to the fact that along with having horrible moderators, HI3 also seems to have a remarkably horrible developer backend, which is a trend that you'll see pop up quite a lot in this post. Taken straight from the horse's (haha) mouth, the lead developer is the only person who seems to be able or willing to add to the filter list, and for whatever reason only wants to block the "most common inappropriate words"- because saying transgender is more of an issue than nazi and gulag I guess.

(Screenshot taken from Top R.'s Sitejabber review, here)

¹ I'm not sure how far this will reach out of my audience, and since people have already assumed weird stuff about me I thought I should probably clarify-- I'm not calling the game "homophobic scum" ghghg, my play through was focused on making horse versions of characters from a novel called "scum villain", so I took the scum and added horse (I actually have another tag for a different horse breeding game called "scum horse chronicles" so I needed to distinguish them easily but am not very good at tagging). That's it.

Part II. The Game

The game itself is, putting it simply, a mess at best and openly hostile towards newcomers at worst. The game's UI is comparable to your average petsite with 20 thousand things to click on but if you tried to navigate that while also watching the Pilgrim's Progress movie by Scott Cawthorn on 90% of your screen. This is a very good overview of what your experience first logging in will be like, with the added caveat that talking in global chat costs in game currency and that the game doesn't tell you this at ALL until you try to type in chat, and that depending when you log on it's entirely possible that you'll spawn into a completely dead town miles away from anyone who can help you, wilderness survivor-style.

To make things more complicated, information about the game is split between the game itself and the laughably horrible website/forums. Spectacularly enough, the forums, which provide vital game information and rule elaborations, cannot be searched in any way (not via Google or any hard-baked search bar) and are regularly purged by admins to erase evidence of scandals and poor moderation complaints.

Now, something you will find to be generally people's biggest issue with HI3 is their strict no "date-speak" rule, which sounds ok on paper but is worded *just* vaguely enough to give the moderators full jurisdiction over whether or not they think you're breaking the rules. Selective moderation is a major theme in the HI3 chronicle, but it is perhaps most documented with regards to this rule, because what the hell does "boyfriend/girlfriend talk" even mean?? Outside of vagueness, this rule has also been scrutinized extensively by others due to the fact that a pair of previous moderators were openly married with the igns "FrogLips" and "MrsFrogLips". I don't personally think this is super condemning, since kids usually address adults by Mr/Ms etc whether or not they know they're in a relationship, but regardless it's clear that the complete lack of elaboration on what this rule means can be easily manipulated to lodge any number of complaints against people.

(Screenshot from the Horse Isle website rules page, here)

What I will say, however, is that this rule would probably hold more water if the game wasn't literally about breeding horses.

You can pimp out your horses, you can pay others to breed your mares, you can put any number of special (real life currency-bought) amulets on your horses to make them more fertile/have twins/give birth faster. I paid $1000 to castrate Jiang Cheng. The word "stud" (which btw, is another word for a black butch lesbian) is used constantly. Perhaps most shockingly, horse inbreeding is very common and accepted among the community, to the point that it is explicitly mentioned and EXPLAINED in the game guide; the only penalization for it is that your incest product foal will have a lower intelligence stat. Call me old-fashioned, but I feel as though implementing and acknowledging that horses can breed with their own relatives is hmm perhaps more harmful than another player saying the word gay, but what do I know.

(Screenshot from the Horse Isle website game guide page, here (only accessible with an account))

Well, you might ask, after you breed and sell a horse, is there any way to put a brand on it so you know it's from your ranch? That's where the "prefix" system comes in. Prefixes are bolded titles that appear in front of a horses name in lists and in the overworld, and are described in the official game guide as follows:

(Screenshot from the same Horse Isle website game guide page as linked previously)

I think you can toggle them off if you don't want to see them, though I could be wrong. They're basically just 1-5 letter titles you can put on your own horses (nobody else's, importantly). There's no way to search prefixes, and you won't see them in game unless either a horse with a prefix is listed in auctions or you actually encounter someone in-game and see their horse.

In fact, I would learn later that not even the moderators monitor the prefixes, and apparently have no way to mass-delete them. At all.

(Image taken from an anonymous friend)

Now, it's not unusual that a game as complicated as HI3 would inevitably have a pretty taxing server-side code. Millions of multifaceted assets and features is really nothing to scoff at. However, the notion that your lead developer has to perform a manual search in the game's code to delete the equivalent of a stamp from every instance individually is hilarious. I'm not going to pretend to be a game developer, but there HAS to be a better way of coding a feature that intakes user-generated content that should probably be monitored regularly than that, right? Or, at least, there should be a robust filter system that could prevent any issues from occurring before they would need to be fixed so tediously. You might think.

On December 29th, 2022, I discovered how to register a prefix. It's very common to headcanon the characters I was naming my horses after as transgender, and I thought it would be cute to attach "TRANS" to my horses as a nod to this. However, a filter blocked the word. I was disappointed, but not surprised², and then tried to think of another word that was under 5 letters. To my complete and gay surprise, "GAY" was not filtered out, and henceforth, this worked as my prefix.

As you can see on the popup here, there are scant guidelines for what the requirements for a prefix should be. And, in this moment of apparently utter foolishness, I was under the impression that since "GAY" was NOT filtered out despite there clearly being a filter on this function, it was ok to register. Possibly it's not filtered because it's a synonym for "happy", I thought, which is also cute because I do like when horses are happy. Perhaps the staff had learned from their past criticism and had loosened the restrictions slightly because they felt restructuring was appropriate now that gay marriage is legal in the US, I imagined.

(My original post)³

What I could not imagine, however, was that the only reason the word wasn't filtered out, despite being possibly the most common sexuality-related word, was just because the lead dev couldn't be assed to add it to the filter list. And that apparently I was supposed to know this because it would lead to a permanent ban on my second offense with no warning.

² Hence typing "eat shit lol". Admittedly childish of me, but I didn't put a lot of thought into the post because it was just part of a casual silly live blog I was doing to blow off steam. The "if I get banned" tag surprisingly was not referencing "GAY", as I genuinely thought I was in the clear for that for reasons stated above, but because I tried to register "TRANS" and then posted about it online. You don't have to believe me, but I feel the need to defend myself since some people have wildly extrapolated that my actions were malicious instead of just a split second decision I made because I was bored one morning.

³ Despite the pop-up box saying that prefixes cannot be removed, they actually can at any time, given only that the person that owns the prefix unregisters the horse from it. The unregistering mechanic is for whatever reason not told to the player upon registering the prefix, but is mentioned in the official game guide linked above.

Part III. The Ban, The Report

I will preface this section by saying that I played the game normally. I do like being outrageous sometimes for my followers' entertainment, but I really don't like dragging random people into my antics if they aren't interested. Because of this, I really didn't interact with other players unless we were mutuals on some other platform. I rarely used the chat feature except to participate in server-wide events that required team participation, and I typically just explored on my own for fun. In general I think I was a pretty ok player, objectively, which lines up with my user trust score.

You see, the way moderators of HI3 allegedly keep track of rule breaking is through a "user trust score" with points added if you use features in the game, help people, etc, and points deducted if you violate rules. Anecdotally I've heard that around the -10 total points mark is when moderators put you on a sort of list to be monitored for suspension or punishment, which is pretty reasonable.

By the time I was banned, I had a score of +31. The -10 offset was a part of this debacle. The only thing I had ever done in the game which warranted any kind of violation was, as you will soon see, literally just naming about 30 of my own horses "GAY", a sin egregious enough to apparently offset about 200 hours worth of playtime with no issues.

Because of this, I was a little bit confused on multiple levels. For one, I had never even seen a moderator in game, nor been informed of discipline at any time before. On top of that, their permanent ban notification is extremely strange and vague. The text pop up when you try to log in just reads "Account currently banned -1 minutes ().", which is probably just copied straight from the server-side code for things and just wasn't translated into user-side comprehensibility. You'll also notice there is a "()" section in the notification, which I would assume is where they put the reason for bans, except for the fact that mine was completely blank.

The website which allegedly would hold more info just repeated a near identical code: "BANNED! -1min. Reason:".

So, with nothing else to go off of, I messaged support on the jankiest help center submissions I've ever seen on a website with this:

"Insisting" and "total disregard" are very strong words to use for a situation in which I just typed a word into a textbox because the game let me, I'd think, which is why I tried to reason with her. The prefixes mentioned in my message are well-known amongst the userbase and are much older and wider-spread than mine, so I would think that there would be at least some sort of precedent for this. The "geldings and yearlings" reasoning was mostly a joke, but also intended to express that the nature of an acronym (as the majority of prefixes seemed to be) is that it can be interpreted in many ways. Intent was thrown around a lot when I was discussing the issues of prefixes with other users, and it seemed to have been used to excuse previous behavior in situations where mods liked the users in question better.

I also cannot emphasize enough how much they did not warn me about my prefix being removed. When I logged in and saw my horses' names did not include it, I was suspicious that the moderators removed it just because of the history of their behavior. However, I had no hard evidence because they did not inform me at ALL. Not through in-game mail systems, not through server messages, not through the website. Complete radio silence except for the addition of an unexplained "-10" to my user score. I did complain to some people that I thought it was removed, but a combination of things suggested that it wasn't a huge deal, so I mostly let it lie. For one, I had over 100 hours of playtime and was mildly worried that one of my chat messages had been flagged without my knowledge. For another, my profile text had also mysteriously disappeared, probably because of a glitch, so who knows what could happen in this game. Lastly, I went to the prefix registry again just to check and hilariously enough, they didn't actually block "GAY" from the database. Yeah, they apparently individually deleted it from all of my horses, but couldn't be assed to add such an "inappropriate" word to their filter system.

So I just registered it again and publicly told people that I would do it again if the mods didn't actually tell me to stop. I didn't really care about the prefix because to me, the feature was purely cosmetic. All I wanted was transparency from the staff.

Well, anyway, I assume Connie couldn't think of a comeback, so she just closed my report. I was annoyed because quite literally none of my questions were answered and she didn't even refer to anything in specifics. It would take less than 1 second to type the number of the rule I violated, but I guess that was too much work for her.

I tried to give them as many outs as possible to just apologize about poor communication, but they didn't even take the bare minimum. I would also like to mention that this support ticket process is the ONLY way to directly communicate with any staff. There's no ability to upload files or images on this system, and no email listed that you could contact. So essentially, there's no way to give actual evidence for anything you say even if you want to.

Kat, who is known as the slightly-more-reasonable-but-still-pretty-bad mod then picked up the case. Her response actually provided specific information, which made it leagues above Connie's, but still included some very strange elements for sure.

The notion that this game is intended for a worldwide audience is especially funny to me because you would really think if they cared about other countries they wouldn't violate their own rule one by using a slur for Europe's largest ethnic minority, but ok. It's a weird hill to die on considering how USA-dominated the staff's opinions towards rules are (Connie justifies the usage of a slur for Rromani people based off the opinion of a single roommate she had who reclaimed it, Joe defends a store in-game being called "The Gulag" because Americans don't think gulags are that bad (discussed and cited in the conclusions section)). But then again, picking and choosing what parts of other countries' customs you want to respect is very American, which is why I think they should add an extra star rating for its patrioticness on the website.

As I mentioned before, the prefixes I included in my response are definitely older and more commonly-used than mine, so I'm not sure how they wouldn't have seen them before. This comment also ties back to the suggestion that the moderators have very little control or insight over a distinct feature of their game, which is not a great thing to admit so casually.

Kat has a strange habit of immediately contradicting herself in the same paragraph, as can be seen here. "The glitches never happen and bugs were quickly fixed, but games still have bugs". "People that break the rules usually write in to ask what was wrong, but most people usually never ask". At this point I think we can confidently say that they don't even make an attempt to proofread any of their responses, to be honest.

Her 7th paragraph has one of my favorite lines in this exchange. "If we had to notify players every time we made moderator changes to their account we would spend 24 hours a day" is giving huge Yandere Dev "stop emailing me because I have to spend 24 hours a day reading all my emails instead of coding" energy. You really have to wonder why these people that seem to hate moderating so much are moderators.

You can tell by my response, but I do not like the use of "most" and "usually" in this at all. What's your standard isn't others' standards, and this is a topic which needs to be navigated gently, especially when kids are concerned. I never played the previous Horse Isles. I had no experience with the mod team, or with violations, or with anything because no one bothered to take five seconds to send me a message. No, I did not know that you would permaban me for typing a word that's in one of the most popular traditional Christmas songs in a place were only people who interacted with me would be able to see it. Most games would not do this. To take a lackadaisical approach to your literal job of community management because you want people to moderate themselves is contradictory to your claims of keeping children safe.

I will admit I was being a bit cheeky here as a subtle hint that perhaps they should take feedback, but I also would have taken a genuine response. I try my best to be as polite as possible to tech support staff because not everyone is! But they're people too and a simple thank you is worth a lot in customer service, even virtual. But Kat... you're not really giving me anything to work with here! If anyone reading this has feedback for how I could've rephrased things, feel free to comment them honestly. I actually ran drafts of these messages through a few people before sending them to make sure I was as concise and polite as possible, even if support clearly wasn't interested in reciprocating the effort ("following out rules using the the GAY to begin with"...?).

Part IV. The Backlash

I won't go too into depth in this section because it's more personal than documentarian, so feel free to skip to the next section if you want!

After this, the girlies were not happy with me. The one saving grace of HI3 that I've heard pop up over and over again is that the community is great. And a lot of users are! Don't think I'm disparaging people who play the game because I'm not-- it's a really fun experience with the right people. I was in a Discord server with a lot of people who were extremely helpful and kind.

However, within the community, there's also a pervasive culture of silence. According to Alice Ruppert of The Mane Quest, a lot of people will refuse to go public with their complaints about the staff due to fear of retribution, which I feel is unfortunate but understandable. There's a pressure to shut up and eat your food lest you be seen as someone causing controversy for the sake of it and ruining the sanctity of the game, which is an attitude explicitly encouraged by the staff (discussed more in the next section).

I liveblogged my entire correspondence with the support team to a group of other players for the 2 days I talked to them, and did have a lot of acceptance from people who appreciated someone speaking out. After the 2020 Mane Quest article, public information had sort of just gone dark as the community was pushed further into niche seclusion, despite things not improving at all. However, towards the end of my messaging, a group of people that I had never even spoken to or seen online before accused me of a variety of things ranging from "displaying my sexuality to children" (note: all I ever did was name my horses "GAY". I never once talked about my own sexuality in-game, nor did I say the word in chat ever) to "joining the server to cause drama" to "mocking the lgbt community by throwing around the word gay" (actually I'll attach a picture of this one even though I don't want to put people on blast in this section just because its so funny).

I think most of this can be attributed to the game having gained such a notoriety that longtime players, especially those with strong nostalgic feelings, have become completely desensitized to it. And this compounds with the fact that the game is so niche it doesn't yet have a good alternative to turn to to create a toxic cocktail where people tell themselves that they have to be loyal to the staff to play this one of a kind game-- and that anyone who doesn't follow them just doesn't understand. It's really sad, honestly.

Part V. Conclusions

I don't necessarily think the devs of HI3 are legitimately consciously homophobic-- unfortunately LGBT rights are still controversial amongst the largely southern and rural population of horse enthusiasts, and I could understand if they felt it necessary to skim the line towards conservatism to maintain a userbase. It's cowardly and dumb but it's not a sin to do what you have to do to survive in a capitalistic hellscape as cutthroat as the game industry.

However, what I do think the devs are is power-hungry and hypocritical. They have failed at every turn at community management because they're unwilling to admit they make mistakes, instead choosing to issue non-apologies like "[we] regret you guys got so upset and did not realize neither our true intentions nor motivations nor the whole situation [that we said it's ok that a player has a shop called The Gulag because it's 'not direct or violent']". To respond this way to a userbase filled allegedly with young children as a fully grown adult with a wife and kids is laughably out of touch. 'Sorry your fee-fees were hurt by our adult moderator responding to a serious complaint about inappropriate user-generated content with "lol", but actually you just misunderstood us and we're going to ban anyone who brings this up again' is the sort of response you'd see from the teenage mod team of an Undertale amino, not the supposedly responsible head dev of a 'rare oasis of kid friendly content'.

Telling an audience of impressionable kids that the fact that their feelings are hurt is their fault for not intuiting the intentions of 40+ year old adults is unbelievably toxic, and it's no wonder why people are so nostalgia-bound to feverishly shut down criticism about the games. They've been guilt-tripped into believing the mod team can do no wrong and any controversy, even if valid, that springs up is just extrapolated by people that haven't been laboriously groomed to know what the mod team wants to hear.

Countless times throughout my time researching and playing the game, the number one advice I've heard has always been "suck up to the mods or they won't do anything for you". It's crystal clear that the moderators care more about the joy they get from having power over some 200 users who will kiss their ass if they say a buzzword more than they care about you, your child, or the game itself.

It's essentially a model scam Kickstarter's wet dream, a game propelled to release and popularity by its singular defining feature and left to fester on the shelf as the only game in its niche market. Because of this, I believe there's truly no better way to describe HI3, with its messy backend, refusal to improve, narcissistic moderators, broken features, poor visuals, and inefficiency than as the Yandere Simulator of horse games.

#img descriptions in alt text!#lmk if there's any way I can make this more accessible! It's my first time writing something this long on tumblr :)#long post #really long posts #long posts #really long post #essay #hi3 #horse isle 3 #horse isle #fandom drama #hobby drama #discourse #homophobic scum horse chronicles

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lifesteal-headcanons · 6 months

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I'm gonna put the glitch in glitch duo right now and rant about them and how their glitches work because I am so normal about them (lie)

Okay, so I barely got into Lifesteal like. Late last year because of Squiddo joining and I lowkey got really hyped for it and seeing Ash and Squiddo together I was like.. Woah.. New fav duo alert.. And then found that there was no fancontent and had to make it myself so.

Anywho! Ashswag, as we already know, has that lil.. Thing over his left eye (?) That a lot of us (me) has interpreted as like. Glitching. So to start us off, I believe that glitching can stem from messing with your own player code/others player code/server codes/using mods with like. Virus' or something idk im not that smart. And from the Ashswag videos I've watched we can kind of tell where Ash fits in there by like. Fucking with how servers work and therefore fucking up his own code.

Squiddo's code is glitched because.. Have you watched Squiddo's videos? Naw but fr, she's constantly putting the most cancer inducing mods on her game, playing mods that can definitely fry their pc, playing minecraft on a USB DRIVE?? Which would DELETE chunks to MAKE MORE OF ITSELF so like. You can see where I'm going with this. So obviously, their code gets fucked up and the more they do these mods and plug ins and - whatever the hell, the more their code because intangible and unable to be fixed.

So, with that, I'm gonna go ahead and explain how I think their glitching works and how it affects their body/like.. Everything else.

Ashswag's glitches, as we can see, are more visible to the eye. Literally over his damn eye. I'm gonna go ahead and assume that gives him some partial blindness in his left eye. Also, from some fics that ive read ive seen people give him like, back problems and chronic pain that he probably had before but the glitches DEFINITELY don't help at all and instead make the pain way worse than it already is so. Yay!

While Ash's are more physical, I feel like Squiddo's are more like. Mental? If you catch my drift? While Ash is stumbling down into a heap of pain on the floor because his back is killing him, Squiddo is standing in the hallway staring at him wondering why the guy from the one house smp is crumbling on the floor in front of them on a server they swore they were not on a few weeks ago.

So yeah. Memory loss Squiddo. Also inspired from a fic that I do know! I'll link the fics I got inspired from at the end because they are genuinely such good reads and great ideas.

But I decided that memory loss best fit Squiddo, because tbh they are pretty forgetful. And I take their goofy hijinks and shenanigans as just. Squiddo having to recollection of anything and just trying to do something (which she's probably done before) to job their memory but oh well. I feel as if the memory loss is more of a living in the farlands thing rather than glitched out fucked-up code inducing thing, but whatever. The only time we see glitched out Squiddo is on thumbnails! So I feel like whenever Squiddo joins a server or world that's previously glitched or like. They're already pretty glitched, it really takes its toll and fucks up the whole thing and makes it a memory loss disaster for Squiddo.

And because of Squiddo's horrible memory, they can never recollect and find out what the hell happened to the world to make it this glitched out when in reality she's the reason the world is so glitched.

Except when joining servers! Surprisingly, they don't experience those things when joining servers while when joining worlds the world would become discombobulated and delete itself just after a few hours. Funsies! Which they realize when they join the one house smp just to explore it and then they find ASHSWAG!! And then realizes that HE'S GLITCHED TOO!! YAYY!!! And then they absolutely BOMBARDDDD him with questioned like "why do my worlds always delete themselves?", "what causes someone to have a glitched code?" And "how are servers able to not glitch out?" Etc etc which Ashswag answers and then BOOM! FRIENDSHIP!!!

Basically the only reason servers are able to work for them is because theres like.. This other thing cody whatever that prevents it to idk im not smart. This is not compliant with my past fics written about this stuff but oh wellsies.

Another thing I have made up is 'glitch fever' where basically they just get sick because of their fucked up code and glitches. Yeah. Also based off a fic I read where being around Ashswag too much can make you sick and stuff. I feel like their are certain people who are immune to it like Reddoons (purely because of Swagdoons and nothing else) and Squiddo (because they also glitch tf out and Swagsquid/silly).

Another thing I've like. Headcanoned (because this is all just me reading too much into things and making too many headcanons about) is that their glitches also like.. Made their body tempature irregular. This is so random but it was just something I thought of and then I wrote a fic about it. Like, Ash is constantly fucking cold and on a hot ass texas summer day he'll feel a little warm. Same for Squiddo just vice versa. I love them. The sillies. I want to put them in a terrarium and study them.

That's.. All I have I'm pretty sure. Hello I am Swagsquid the #1 Glitch Duo Writer/Enthusiast and the #1 Swagsquid Shipper (the ONLY Swagsquid shipper..) and thank you for listening to my ted talk.

Fics I took inspiration from:

"Dear Diary: Today, I killed someone" by Fey_wilde on Ao3 (https://archiveofourown.org/works/52170592)

"I Feel Too Weak to Stand" by Eternal_Era on Ao3 (https://archiveofourown.org/works/48067240)

"fault lines" by garlic_sauc3 on Ao3 (https://archiveofourown.org/works/41924196)

Fics I've written based on this idea:

"Glitch fever" by (ME!!) Swagsquid on Ao3 (https://archiveofourown.org/works/53400835)

"The warmth of another's embrace" by Swagsquid on Ao3 (https://archiveofourown.org/works/53449573/chapters/135284551)

"Forgotten hot chocolate" by Swagsquid on Ao3 (https://archiveofourown.org/works/54350146)

(Please read the tags and ratings before reading some of the fics!)

#ask #headcanon #lifesteal smp #ashswag #squiddo #long post

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