#journeys from Minecraft

[catzgam3rz]

Dunno how to articulate quite how deep the dsmp hyperfixation has clung these years but boy am I having emotions tonight about it!

[calico-kiwi]

WE’RE SO BACK (<- finally re-found the spark that fuels them from a creative/serotonin perspective after months of it fleetingly flickering in and out)

[mars-graveyard]

oh my god oh my god oh my god

[zapsoda]

i hate the "this place makes NO sense" "dont i know it" back and forth from the recent minecraft movie trailer. first of all i dont needa point it out that is the shittiest fuckin marvel movie dialogue thats the kinda dialogue movies include and then make fun of as if being self aware makes it okay. terrible. secondly and more importantly minecraft has very strict internal logic based on the real world it DOES make fucking sense and steve would know that it would make sense to him.

[nyalisa-landale]

started looking up minecraft version history to figure out when I started playing the game, and I determined that my copy of minecraft is thirteen years old. modern minecraft is practically a completely different game!

and then I added 98 mods 4 resource packs and some shaders, so now it really IS like a whole new game.

I needed nether quartz to upgrade my mob farms, so I built a nether portal, saw a new vanilla biome so i started collecting unique blocks, but did not find nether quartz - so I teleported over to the northernmost place I'd discovered, but that just popped me out in the middle of basalt biome hell (also vanilla) which was already even on my map, so I decided I Needed To Explore.

and so I returned to the overworld and ventured ever northward, keeping in mind the abbreviated distances of the nether, to find somewhere far enough away to throw down another nether portal. I traveled through a massive bayou, several mangrove swamps, and even two separate magical forests; I saw great sweeping terracotta spikes bursting high through the surface of weathered badlands, and even a vanilla desert with a pyramid.

a pyramid with a golden idol and a ring teleporter: solid proof that the goa'uld had once been there. the teleporter took me to a desert temple with fairly mediocre loot and several armor trim templates (identical).

then I continued my journey, venturing forth through crimson forests and across icy rivers. I explored the heart of a massive glacier made entirely of black ice. I found and climbed a massive tower of ice and snow (the path was made mostly of snow, and fell through the same patch of powder snow three times), and at the top found an armor stand and several lanterns encased in ice. the structure was clearly manmade, so I decided to leave the armor stand where it was, just in case it was sealed for a reason.

finally, I found a village which had mostly generated at the top of a cliff, except for some empty stands and a bridge halfway across the river, which had generated at the bottom. across the river (and up another cliff) was a cherry grove, and, having traveled some five kilometers across the overworld, I decided: this, at the base of the village cliff, was the perfect place to build a new nether portal.

only to discover that I had no obsidian, because I had never actually demolished my second portal.

once I did that and set up the new portal, I found myself in the nether wastes (vanilla) where I watched what I thought was two piglins making out, but turned out to be one zombiefied piglin transforming his brethren. I dug a tunnel through solid netherrack, tried to make a gentle slope downward, fell into the lava ocean, decided not to slope the tunnel and just build a pillar with some stairs at the end, and finally successfully found some quartz! and also a fortress! I very carefully bridged my way across some basalt pillars in the lava ocean and broke into the stronghold, leaving myself careful directional markings in chalk as I went so that I only got a little bit lost. successfully found nether wart AND a blaze spawner, so I collected some wart and killed blazes until one of them dropped a card I could use to farm more blaze rods.

then I finally returned to my base, only to realize that the squat grow mod I had installed hours earlier kind of defeated the entire point of my making a skeleton farm to farm bones for bone meal.

my plan was to disable the mod, but I've just now thought that I could slap a zombie card into that farm instead, for rotten flesh I can craft into leather, so I think that's what I'm going to do.

[confetti-critter]

I was gunna wait until the creaking biome came out to look for the woodland mansion because I wanted to leave as much area as possible un-generated but I couldn't wait that long sooooo

I also made a little house in the trees :>

[artsy-book]

asking u one thing :

how/when did you start watching minecraft smps (empires, hermitcraft, etc) ?

so how i got INTO watching minecraft content is a bit of a funny story to me

so in like mid 2019 i had started seeing lots of really cool dsmp art in the explore section of insta when i was on the app. i at the time had no idea what dsmp was but i loved the art. in december of that year i found dream's man hunt videos and watched all of them and somehow got to tommy and wilbur from dream. and from wilbur and tommy i got into the dsmp, finding all the dsmp people and the surrounding mcyters (scott and shubble for some examples)

and near the end of 2020 to beginning of 2021 my one brother showed me some of grian's videos (i think it was one of the one's he did with mumbo? im thinking the one where they built grian/mumbo proof houses?) and through that i got into hermitcraft, starting with watching grian's s7.

and that basically leads to now ^-^ my dates for things might be a bit off but thats a pretty rough timeline of how i got here lmao

ask game

[queensparklekitten]

anyways after that minecraft movie trailer i'm tempted to change my skin back to that one based on crimson/warped duality out of spite

they called the nether "a place with no joy or creativity at all" like just tell me you're too scared to go there and thus haven't experienced

-joining in on a group of piglins hunting a hoglin, letting them keep the loot, trading with them afterwards, i find that this temporarily cures the loneliness of singleplayer

-the dance they do afterwards sometimes literally just the piglin dance, hitting shift repeatedly with them

-literally just the nether music at all

-that CRESCENDO in rubedo

-that brief minor key reprise of sweden in dead voxel hhhhhhhhhhhh

-occasional crimson roots in a soul sand valley like oh there's still some life here

-wither skull hunting and recruiting piglins to help you by luring them to the fortress with gold (+ giving them gold helmets so they don't put on the skulls) i love the ways this game lets me fight alongside piglins if i want to

-the subtle animated texture of crimson and warped stems like they feel so ALIVE with that one small detail

-seeing a nether tree growing through another one

-and an extremely tall nether tree amidst the normal height ones

-and weeping vines hanging from the ceiling

-passing by a piglin that's wearing enchanted iron boots and immediately knowing you've met and traded with this one before

-parkour challenge basalt delta

-also the particles in that biome look like snow if you turn down your render distance

-STRIDERS. Literally just striders. They're like bonded creatures to me, honorary tameable mobs, you put a saddle on the one mob in the nether that would never hurt you and then go on a journey together across the deadly lava ocean avoiding ghasts together and you can't remove the saddle now unless you kill it which you can't do because it's your ride back to the portal, once that strider is saddled it is Your strider and even if you release it into the wild you will immediately recognize it by the saddle if you see it again and in such a dangerous world you have found a companion you can always trust and idk bout you but i always bond so hard with them

-and also they're kind of cute, esp with the little waddle walk

-seeing a baby strider on top of an adult one

-literally just the fact that nether biomes have all this constant looping ambience and particles in the air that makes them feel so immersive and so alive, each biome has its own unique soundscape and ambience, can you imagine soul sand valleys without the wind and the whispers and wails

-aside note the particle effects are like the animated stems in that they're such a subtle detail but they add so much, i never really noticed them until i was netherite mining and started using them to tell which biome i'm under

-the nether was doing ambience and immersion 5 years before the Spring Drop allowed the overworld to finally catch up to it

-the adorableness of baby piglins

-esp when they ride on top of baby hoglins

-PIGSTEP. FUCKING PIGSTEP. the piglins have music and it's SUCH A BANGER i've thrown ingame parties with this music disc

-seeing warped fungus in a crimson forest or crimson fungus in a warped forest

-biome borders between the two that have all this warped foliage in the crimson forest and vice versa as they blend into each other

-nyooming across a soul sand valley with soul speed 3 boots, laughing at the skeletons and ghasts who can't land a hit on you, bonus if you add a speed potion to the mix

-doing this and realizing the subtitle says "soul escapes" and you're surrounded by blue particles and realizing you're freeing them from their imprisonment (and presumably the piglins who made this enchantment are doing the same when they use it)

-the rib and snout armor trims

-gilded blackstone it's so pretty and nice and a great building block (and you can't craft it only the piglins know how to do that)

-bastions have chiseled blackstone

-and their own exclusive banner pattern

-some of them have that gold-and-quartz decorative thing that looks like some kinda statue

-apparently part of the Bridge type of bastion is designed to resemble a piglin head with the mouth as the entrance

-someone in the notes mentioned glowstone and YES how did i forget it when originally making this post, glowstone my childhood favourite block that's in my current mc username, pretty and shiny and also the way piglins used it to invent spectral arrows

-getting lost in the lore implications, noticing the huge fossils and the implications of the name "warped forest" as well as the names of some of its ambience sounds and the fact that basalt comes from rapidly cooling lava irl and next thing you know you've got a whole red string theory going that edges closer and closer to cosmic horror

-ik the fossils look like ribs but one time i wondered if they might be the fingers of something unfathomably huge

-the time i encountered a baby piglin running from a zombified one so i pushed the zombified piglin off the fortress and then gave the baby piglin a gold nugget

but hey what do i know i'm just a nether enthusiast on the "romanticizing and finding beauty in the horrifying and the forsaken" website huh

[snowydragon10]

I love the Wither idea!!

The piglin thing really is my biggest problem with the movie (and Legends too ftr)

Like it doesn't look like it's gonna be good in general either, but I'd probably be more amused than annoyed

But interpreting the piglins as evil is just such bad vibes, it's a bad narrative. Intentional or not, it frankly feels like an excuse to kill them and plunder their homes because they have valuables we (players) want

Sorry but we're the bad guys here, we're the ones invading their lands and their homes and stealing their shit. That's bad guy behaviour. The piglins aren't invading the overworld to kill and rob everybody, it's the other way around. This is literally just projecting

(And yes, this is pretty much how colonialism worked too: invade a land, rob everything you can carry, then villainise the locals when they get mad at you and try to chase you out, then use that to justify killing them and taking over the land, and finally you transform the land to fit your purposes and call it progress)

I mean it's kinda unfortunate that the game very much encourages this kind of behaviour. Like I'm not canceling Minecraft or anything but it's worth thinking about. You literally can't barter for the netherite template, you either rob the piglins or you don't get one, so the game incentivises you to become a robber, and then you justify yourself by claiming that it's okay because the piglins are trying to kill you (for invading their home and robbing them) and they were probably just being greedy anyway (not like you, you're just entitled to own everything of course)

idk, I don't wanna be a killjoy because raiding bastions is actually really fun. I'm just saying, if you're gonna be a bad guy just accept that you're the bad guy, don't try to shift the blame

[dduane]

“Usually, a film that has a great debut like Sinners would get some celebratory coverage from the trades and online sites. But, even though it’s another certified blockbuster that’s keeping the lights on at Warner Bros. (Minecraft is also a WB picture), some outlets have been downplaying its obvious success. The New York Times reported that, despite its opening weekend haul, it still has a long way to go to break even at the box office. Variety made the same quibbles on X. Vulture has been the most blatant in covering Sinners‘ financial journey, even dropping a post-weekend piece titled “So Is Sinners Going to Make or Lose Money?” (Jesus, can Black folk do a victory lap before we get to the numbers-crunching?)”

[twilight-skies]

First thoughts as follows:

1. They used the mobs who only attack when you intrude their territory and steal from them to be the invading hordes of villains, when they could’ve used the entire species named “Pillagers”

2. They whitewashed Steve so that he could be played by an actor who doesn’t even look like him in any aspect. Is that a sweater

3. Dumb jumanji plot when they could’ve used minecraft as the setting and worldbuilding and based it on characters who are from that world. (Humans from our world…who meet a native?? Why not either make it about that iconic character, maybe his origin story of his first journey through the game, OR another group of characters who’ve just freshly spawned and Steve leads them along as a veteran mentor??)

4. Several years ago an entire cast of potential characters was introduced into the game. And they didn’t use them

5. I have three novels sitting on my shelf that would’ve made amazing movies if they wanted to put minecraft in theaters. I could write a better story for the essence of minecraft and I have.

6. If you’re gonna make a world out of Minecraft, don’t put the blockiness in the living things—or at least make it subtle. A wolf whose fur has square shapes in it only when you do a closeup? When you squint at a bee, you realize it’s the shape of a rectangle?

A world where the trees are made up of block shapes and the land is shaped by straight, sharp lines? That’s an aesthetic. Or, even, something like this, where the land reflects the flat terraced environment. Just…make it subtle. Trees and fence posts and ropes that, in our world, would be round, just happen to have sharp edges forming cubes in this one.

This? Green screen hell nightmare fuel

7. Why not use Minecraft’s own iconic music in the trailer

8. These writers have clearly never taken a single look at the years and years of mcyt storytelling and fandom that displays exactly what we as a player and fanbase would’ve wanted out of this

9. If the movie doesn’t conclude with these guys fighting the dragon then what’s even the point

10. Why have the piglins enslaved the ghasts

11. Why do the protagonist actors need to be the only non animated things in this movie

12. Why didn’t that llama spit at the end

13. THE LANDSCAPE IN THE ABOVE SCREENSHOT DOES NOT EVEN RESEMBLE COMMON MINECRAFT TERRAIN GENERATION

[csolarstorm]

A Happy Ghast? Well Now I've Seen Everything.

For as long as I can remember, people have been asking for a rideable dragon to hatch from the Ender Dragon egg. But a good creator never does what the audience expects, because the audience's expectations are mostly informed by the past, and the creator must plan for the future.

So instead of a dragon, here's a rideable ghast. You know, like those mods that add "happy" versions of hostile mobs? It's like that. And instead of hatching a dragon egg, you have to soak a very thirsty hell squid. Enjoy!

It might seem like a random, quirky feature to some people, but I think the Happy Ghast is the first feature in a while to truly add to the game's progression. We've had new weapons, armor, and ore, but for the first time in a while, this is a new kind of asset that will help us navigate and build. The Happy Ghast will be on the same level as the Elytra as a late game feature everyone will want to have.

And arguably, the Happy Ghast outdoes the Elytra:

First, there's a very involved process to get it: you have to find it in the most dangerous nether biome, then bring it to the overworld to soak in water for a while, and then you raise it like any other pet. Once it grows up, you craft a harness, and then you're set. It's a fun journey just to get it.

It serves as a pet rather than just an item, adding a personal angle to it. The Ghastling is adorable, and the Happy Ghast is a novelty that just...makes veteran Minecraft players happy. You get your own Ghast. That's worth it even before you can fly on it.

The riding looks a lot more precise and smooth than the rapid thrill of the Elytra, and you can build while you're on it! That's arguably the best part - it's basically Creative Mode flying in survival. It's practically an accessibility feature, and it's a more liberating way to build tall structures in Survival Mode than putting up tons of scaffolding (or in my case, dirt that I'll remove later.)

Lastly, three other people can hitch a ride on your Happy Ghast. It's basically a flying minivan. Everyone will want a ride from the first person in the server to get a Happy Ghast. Your unsettling, pale cube of happy ectoplasm will be the envy of the server!

Who knows, maybe this game drop will actually come with an Elytra update to balance out the usefulness of our new friendly phantasm.

It's a really well designed feature, and I'm excited to try it out. I love it when Mojang really zeroes in on what aspects of the gameplay to update based on how we play the game. This is one of those new features that really shows off their creative team's strengths.

[gojo-mochi]

Telling JJK men “I’m not putting my minecraft bed next to yours tonight”

TW: Sweet/Simple. Mild Suggestive on Toji's part

Gojo:

Dramatically falls to his knees, tears, snot, all the works. Threatens to jump off the highest block in all the lands. Kidnaps your pet wolf or favorite farm animal and tells you that he’s “taking the kids and leaving.” Would loudly put on sad music as he plays right next to you, digging in the mines underground very, very slowly. Not even using his best equipment, just a shitty stone pickaxe because he thinks that makes him look more gloomy in your eyes. Would talk out loud to all the animals you own about how he misses you and how “Momma” is mad at him. 

Geto:

Looks flabbergasted that you would even utter something like that to him. Hits back with “Well, I’m not gonna put my bed next to yours!” Like he was the one to said that in the first bed. Quickly goes to make a very elaborate Minecraft House so he can brag about how comfy and deluxe it is in front of it. Makes a grand tour of showing you the inside, which ends at the bedroom which he decorated to the nines. A sly attempt to somehow make you jealous enough so you would come crawling back to him so you could live in this new fancy mansion he made (in a video game)

Nanami: 

Have a heartbroken look on his face right after you said that, and you immediately regret it. Would take his bed out of the house first so your character can still be in there; would move his bed down to the basement or another building. Goes on a journey to pick up some flowers or lure in a new pet dog/cat/parrot to win back your love (he never lost it). You put your beds back together in less an hour and played the rest of the night, all snuggled up in Nanami’s lap as you watch him tend to the farming. 

Choso: Is also heartbroken by your words. Stops playing the game and looks at you like a kicked puppy. “Does that also mean that I can’t sleep with you in our bed tonight?” (He’s talking about your real-life bed). You don’t know whether or not you should tease him further or just say that it was a joke all along. If you decide to tease him further and double down on your words, he would spend a whole day in secret, building something to show you in the game world. A whole field of flowers or a statue of your in-game character as a show of good will. 

Toji:

Not really into the game that much but plays it because you like it. So saying that doesn’t really bother him until you say it also applies in real life, then that will get his head to turn. With his eyebrow raised and his arm crossed, he looks at you and asks, “Are you really going to go down this route?” You fought hard to keep a straight face and nodded. “If you take it back now, I will forget this all even happened, last chance.” Toji uncrossed his arms and placed his hands on his knees as he got into position to start chasing. You glance at your escape route (the door) and suck in a breath. “You’ll never catch me alive.” And with that you ran. You sprinted out the door as fast as you could, screaming for your life as Toji chased behind you.  You don’t get far before he catches you and throws you over his shoulder, pinning you down to your shared bed, and making you regret your words from earlier.

[hydrophobicmenace]

The interesting thing about QSMP is that it is a perfect example of how people spontaneously mimic the structures of human societies when they are thrown into a situation together, and the best part is that the resulting dynamics were totally unforeseen by Quackity himself.

We knew that the point of creating pairs and assigning each of them a little creature to protect was to incentivize people to break the language barrier and bridge the cultural gap—that’s the whole reason this server existed. And it worked wonderfully. What I’m sure the admins didn’t account for, however, is that because these creatures were played by real people, they developed personalities of their own and before they knew it, what was supposed to be a temporary event turned into the very core of the server.

It's hard to explain to people the sheer impact that the eggs left on all of us without sounding like we’re completely insane. Our brains are really bad at making the difference between real and fictional relationships (if there even is such a thing), so when you spend weeks taking care of a little egg that follows you around and eats the food you make and calls you its parent, you don’t just go about your day pretending that it’s all a game.

(Except Roier. This guy has exceptional mental fortitude.)

We are social animals. We look out for each other. When someone lets an egg die, it feels like a failure on ourselves and the people who put their faith in us. Look at Slime, he literally exiled himself for it. So they start weaving a net to stop their fall, a web of connections between the islanders that can withstand outside pressure. It takes a village, they say. The islanders came together to protect something dear to their hearts, and from their efforts bloomed a tight-knit community that never would have seen the light of day in different circumstances.

Accidents still happen, of course. But at least you’re not alone to face them. I often think about how every single person on the server at the time was immediately willing to accompany Jaiden and Roier on an 8k blocks journey to the place of Bobby’s death, not because Cucurucho told them to, but because they didn’t want the pair to face this hardship on their own. They didn’t need to know them well to volunteer—hell, the francophones had literally crash-landed the day before and Kamel probably thought that Bobby was some kind of pet still. They just did, because that’s what people do for each other. They’ll stand outside of the room where two grieving parents are saying goodbye to their child and discuss plans for a funeral because they understand that it’s the last thing you want to think about when you’re mourning, and someone has to do the unpleasant work.

Grief is a really silly and complicated thing that is difficult to simulate. I don’t think anyone would willingly put themselves in the state of anguish that some of the players were in during that time. Like Bad said, it was a genuinely traumatizing experience, yet you just had to live through it to understand why he didn’t regret any of it. These eggs were their babies—imagine someone gives you a little creature and asks you to sing them lullabies and bring them on adventures until it becomes something you look forward to every day, only to take them away from you on a whim—how fucked up is that?

But even in those moments of tragedies, there is some light to be found. Even as the Brazilians are sat around Maximus in a sullen silence while he plays the harmonica, the francophones are busy collecting bricks a couple feet away and discussing their plans for Pomme—literally ensuring the future of the island in real time. And they did a fantastic job of it. I’ve never seen people fight so hard for the life of a Minecraft egg; French viewers were literally threatening to organize a revolution on the bird app in case things didn’t go their way. You don’t typically do that for a two-week old cubito.

When you think about it, prying this server from their cold dead hands was really the only way to end this.

[bughugz]

penetrative sex is always like cool in theory but everything before and after that is where its at i love foreplay i want the sexual tension i want aggressive make outs and sloppy head that turns into face fucking and dialogue that gets you whining in anticipation clawing at skin and bruises and bite marks everywhere hands around my neck and in my hair and on my hips and my ass red and my nipples so sensitive from being sucked on and tugged at being hit across the face and manhandled around and the teasing at the entrance to my holes that just drags on forever and drives me crazy and leaves me begging to be filled and and it's sooo good when it finally happens but god do i love the journey and then being edged or overstimulated within half an inch of my life and finally the aftercare hands gently navigating my body and silly pillow talk and cuddling and kissing and praise and affirmation and smoking a joint together and falling asleep in each others arms or deciding we gotta go bake some cookies and watch cartoons or the autistic urge to watch some dumb youtube video essay or play minecraft taking over whatever i don't even care i'm just really gay and need it all and like to each their own but i feel bad for everyone who is just experiencing basic boring heteronormative sex🫠

[witherking001]

Mojang is NOT villainizing piglins.

I'm just gonna rant about this here since I keep seeing this take. I feel like a lot of you guys are taking too much of this piglin stuff at face value. Like, if you think Mojang is actively "demonizing" piglins or something, I straight up don't think you've been paying attention or looking at this with a critical eye. Piglins live in a cruel world. A harsh landscape which would obviously shape their societies to value strength and anything of the sort which would keep them alive. The Nether lacks certain resources, some of which is actually the fault of their ancestors.

Like, this is something we've known since the Nether Update came out.

I say this because there's actually reason for piglin society to be the way it is. It makes sense. Even so, piglins aren't inherently evil, even in the various games. Vanilla Minecraft is obvious. You can barter with them and hang around them if you wear gold. The piglin merchant from Minecraft Dungeons makes this point even more evident with the fact that they journeyed to the Overworld simply to set up shop.

They're completely passive to the player. They're not here to invade and they don't care if you wear gold or not.

In Minecraft Legends, it's a legend. A story passed down from generations. It doesn't necessarily reflect a full truth.

Even so, a lot of the piglins don't even seem to care about invading the Overworld too much. Two out of the three main piglin generals don't even actively participate in the invasion.

The boss known as the "Devourer," leader of the Horde of the Spore, doesn't do much besides send out additional forces to help with the invasion. They mainly just want to keep eating mushrooms.

The boss known as the "Beast," leader of the Horde of the Hunt, especially doesn't care for invading the Overworld. Throughout the cutscenes they appear in, they just want to hunt hoglins.

It straight up takes another piglin leader to step in before they actually do anything to help with the invasion.

Hell, these piglins get abused by their bosses for not complying or failing to accomplish what they must.

Even the bosses get abused by their bosses!

To think that they are all a truly malicious force is a gross generalization for you to take from all this. The truth is that it's complicated. The ones in power dictate what happens and that doesn't necessarily reflect the average piglin and what they want.

Ultimately, they comply out of fear. For their own security. And that's just what happens in a lot of empires with powerful leaders. Perhaps they don't even know better. The Nether is a tough place to live in. So, what's one more fight to them if they might have a chance to one day survive somewhere in a place without lava and ghasts everywhere. Especially if succeeding will also keep their bosses off their backs.

The piglins have a complicated past and that's fine and actually very realistic. If anything, I feel that Mojang has given the piglins the best kind of treatment, in this way. The most world building out of any Minecraft civilization. It just sucks to see when people don't realize that.

And with the movie, I feel it's largely the same as in Legends. Can you really tell me that piglins here are inherently an evil people? Look at this little guy.

Once again, it's the fault of their leadership and their cruel mentalities that have spawned and evolved long ago from living in a cruel world.

Yes, that piglin did just stab that child, btw.

Anyway, my point is that there's just so much more nuance to this than just taking away "piglins bad" from Minecraft media.