Guess who made a QSMP AU about Martyn being on the Island?!
This is just some barfing I did while dealing with Carpal Tunnel, so if you see some of them and think, "Why is the lineart so bad here?" That's why. I developed Carpal Tunnel and refused to stop and/or remove my brace.
Anyway, I still have no idea how Martyn would have gotten to the island within the logic on the island, like I'm sure Doc sent him there, but I have no idea if he would have being already there or was sent on a boat by the island or what. I do know that they will probably contact him because of his experience dealing with Watchers as someone who seemed to break out of their grasp, and the Federation thinks what they have on their hand is a Watcher since, you know, tricked a bunch of people into a secluded area and forcing to kill each other for its entrainment is all very Watcher-y behavior.
What they didn't know is that he seems close to the notorious Federation hater and anarchist Philza, like, sure, they look similar, but you can't blame them! All white men look the same!
if you’re going to miss the qsmp content whilst the server is down, may i suggest indulging in some of the fantastic fics that this fandom has to offer - there are fics of all sizes, genres, ships (romantic and platonic), basically whatever you could want, there’s a fic for it!
fic writers in this fandom are phenomenally talented, and i urge you to show them some appreciation during this time without the server - some of the fics are so realistic it’s like you’re reading canon lore anyway :)
i would suggest ao3 as a starting off point as it’s very easy to filter tags based on what you may/may not want to see.
show appreciation to the authors, they work hard and let’s get each other through this break and the server works behind the scenes to iron out the issues🌟
Fastest Growing Fandoms on AO3 This Week (01/01/2024)
Every week I pull data on how many fics are in each fandom and compare to the previous week, then calculate the percentage increase to determine fastest growing fandoms. Since this naturally skews towards smaller fandoms, I have included the same data filtered to Over 1k, 5k, & 10k fics.
Etho is familiar with the weird rules that come with being a server admin. He’s known Xisuma long enough to know that being an admin comes with perks, but also sometimes just… weird shit. He doesn’t pretend to get all of it, but he knows enough.
So, when the admin of a completely different server suddenly drops into spawn, fighting with his com and cursing up a storm, Etho isn’t really that surprised.
What does surprise him is that the admin is… handsome. Really handsome. And also vaguely familiar, though Etho really only knows him through association. When you create one of the largest multinational, multilingual servers of all time, you gain a reputation.
“You alright?” Etho asks as Quackity (he’s pretty sure that’s his name) picks himself up, still muttering profanities as he dusts himself off.
“Yeah, just fine and dandy, if it weren’t for the fucking Hypixal transport fucking sending me to the wrong server again,” Quackity mutters, before pausing and sighing. “I’m… sorry. It’s been a long day.”
“Getting tossed into the wrong server must be jarring,” Etho says, sympathetic. It’s mostly admins that get that particular shaft, but it’s happened to him once, and it was… very confusing. “You’re an admin for the QSMP, right?”
Quackity looks up from his com, clearly trying to figure out where he is, and nods, smirking slightly. “I’m THE admin for the QSMP. The server has my name on it, after all.”
“I thought you were Quackity,” Etho mutters, watching as Quackity types a quick message, probably to Xisuma, before slipping the com away.
Quackity grins at him, leaning forward so he’s on the balls of his feet, honeyed wings keeping his balance, “Well, since you know me it would be a shame not to get myself acquainted with such a handsome man.”
It startles a laugh out of Etho, especially considering he was just thinking about how attractive the avian was. “Etho,” he says, awkwardly sticking out his hand, “Welcome to Hermitcraft!”
Quackity visibly relaxes as he shakes Etho’s hand. “Thank God this is Hermitcraft. I could’ve ended up somewhere so much worse.”
“You’re thinking 2b2t, I’m guessing.”
“Or any other anarchy server, they eat admins for breakfast,” Quackity says, repressing a shudder, and for the first time, Etho realizes his wings are clipped. Which is really odd, given that he’s, y’know, an admin. Maybe he clips them himself?
“Well, you’re in safe hands here,” Etho promises, and Quackity raises his eyebrow and smirks. “That’s not what I—“
“I mean, I’d hold your hand if you want,” Quackity says, and then laughs when Etho turns about five different shades of red in two seconds.
It's only then that Etho notices that it's beginning to get dark, the sun inching towards the horizon, and they're still at spawn. He gets the feeling that Quackity isn't going to be finding his way back anytime soon, so he turns to the admin and asks, "do you want to come back to my base with me?" Just as Quackity begins to snicker, something witty already on the tip of his tongue, Etho adds, "before it gets dark! To, uh, get away from the mobs. I have a spare bed."
"Damn, and here I was thinking I might bet to slip into yours," Quackity says, and damn he's smooth. Etho feels like an idiot with all his stammering and blushing, but Quackity doesn't seem to mind in the slightest. "Lead the way."
Charlie and Grizzly weren’t on the best terms when grizzly was revived.
Charlie didn’t want to hurt grizzly again,
And Grizzly wanted to make amends.
But with Charlie leaving for Quesadilla island, he was further away from his brother than ever, and Grizzly felt more alone than he had ever been, even when he was in hell.
To fix this problem, he’ll just go and live with Charlie on Quesadilla island! As a helpless egg!!
(Who cares if he’s leaving without notice, the others will just have to deal with it.)
He’ll get closer to Charlie as an egg, then surprise him as a god! Everything will be fixed!
Or so he thought
OR
Grizzly goes down to Qsmp to reunite with Charlie, and things go horribly wrong…
Please guys I’m genuinely dying when I go on the teaduo tag on ao3 and see that 90% of the fics their only in the background for a pissa or a guapoduo or a hideduo centered fic like bro can a person not just read abt lesbians now a days???
I’m fr dying like pls yes I love some of those other ships but the reason I’m on that tag is because I want to see TEADUO SPECIFICALLY not just them as a background couple or smth 😭😭😭
The state of MCYT on Ao3, just for fun. Yes I do this every month, I like numbers. This time the period we're covering will include many holiday exchanges, so I'm excited to see if that's represented!
No new tags that I saw this month, though as always I could have missed something! As you can see, we already have quite the assortment of canonized tags.
Fics are still primarily in english, but we have three exceptions with significant spanish fics. Karmaland (740 of 842 are in spanish, from 731 last month), Tortillaland (110 of 115 are in spanish, the same as last month), and QSMP (752 of 7,375 are in spanish, from 668 last month.)
QSMP also shows 39 fics in French, up from 30 last month, and 405 in Brasilian Portugese, up from 375 last month. While I did not check every language this month, I checked on the languages I knew had a fic in QSMP and we see 1 fic in ASL (probably a misclick as it appears to be in english), 1 fic in Bahasa Malaysia, 1 fic in German, 1 fic in Esperanto, 1 fic in Filipino, 5 works in European Portugese, 5 fics in Русский (Russian), 1 fic in Suomi (Finnish), 1 fic in Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese), and 3 fics in 中文-普通话 國語 (Mandarin Chinese, I believe), all the same as last month. New is two fics in Polski (Polish), one fic in Svenska (Swedish), and one fic in Dansk (Danish).
In the small and micro fandoms (under 200 fics), some of the most active small fandoms have grown out of this category so we only saw small amounts of growth. The standout fandoms all saw an increase of 6 works, and that was a tie between Content SMP, New Life SMP, and Witchcraft SMP. Note that Content SMP was coming up from only 24 works, so 6 new works is an increase of 25% of the fandom, truly impressive.
In the midsize fandoms (200-1000), Fable SMP has broken that 1000-fic mark and can no longer qualify for our standout fandom! Instead, our most active fandom was Evolution SMP, with 33 new works, followed by Mystreet with 20 fics and Minecraft: Story Mode with 24 fics. Mystreet and Story Mode are both new fandoms so it's unclear whether that's people retagging old work or true new fics.
For the post-canon big fandoms: Empires went up by 178 works, singificantly more than last month's 117, but not beating the previous month's 240, and Dream SMP's increase of 918 beat the previous month's 767, but is still only the second time I've seen this fandom fall under a thousand works plus a month. Hermitcraft is between seasons right now, but still experienced that holiday exchange boost, as its increase of 784 beat both last month's 574 and the previous month's 651. For active fandoms, traffic series posted a staggering 831 fics, which is its highest ever number, beating April 2023's 671 fics. QSMP saw 865 fics, which is part of a three month decline (894 last month, 913 the month before), but still posting numbers that are only exceeded by DSMP.
Overall, the number of fics posted under Video Blogging-RPF (the umbrella fandom that contains all MCYT) is 4,223 fics, a significant increase from last month's 3,489, and the previous month's 4,035, but still exceeded by October's record 4,702. Notably, it's higher than the summer numbers and almost exactly the same as the number we saw last January, 4,235 new works.
Detailed breakdown under the cut
The Cube SMP (8 works, 8 last month, 0-fic increase)
I’m just imagining like a Future Au, where everyone escapes the island and the Federation gets demolished. Where the eggs get their own jobs titles and Sunny becomes a Movie Star like she always wanted.
Like, she’s sitting in their acting chair when someone is having trouble graphing out the set as a machine malfunctioned and everyone is freaking out bc their already delayed on filming. Sunny, obviously annoyed by this, goes over to see what the fuss is about and sees that the workers calculated wrong.
Their like “An experienced worker would’ve noticed that right away, why didn’t you?” And quickly writes down the correct formula and equation for the positioning and walks away like “A star like me shouldn’t waste their time on something their not payed for. Do your job!” And goes behind set to fix their makeup.
New workers are flabbergasted and older workers yell the new ones for not seeing the problem sooner. A few are gossiping in the corner like, “How did she know that? They’ve never even touched dirt without gloves, how could she have made that calculation so quickly?”
The other turns to them like “You don’t know? Their the daughter of Tubbo and Fred_! The CEO’s of the fastest growing marketplace in the world, Turbo?? Rumor has it, Mr._ has made every single machine the factory uses and is the only one running all of them! The one that broke multiple records in Engineering and revolutionized the Create scape as we know it?? The ways that are being taught in schools?? You would be crazy to think he’s daughter didn’t know something about machines!”
And the new workers are stunned, and get called out by the older workers a bit for judging a book by it’s cover.
Sunny, later on, even drops a line like “Oh yeah, Pa wanted me to run the company after he retires. Hated building though, so it’s going to my cousin Rámon instead.”
phil: literally, ramon is just like, the secret agent undercover, just like pulling the strings, he's like "oh what- oh guys, what if we went on a raid together! that'd be craazy! woaah!!"
phil: "aw can you teach me how to cook? b-both of you though? can you both teach me how to cook? i don't know what i'm doing, i know how machine work, but not how- not how oven work." *laughs*
phil: and then he just sits back on a chair, just like. watching them just like, cook things together. wicked.
Fit rolls over to look at Pac, his roommate staring up at the ceiling. He reaches over, cautiously offering his hand. Pac, of course, takes it just as hesitantly.
"Cell's back, maybe after you, and you're worried about Phil?" Okay, so Fit is worried too, but his point is well made. Pac had only told him some of the situation, in whispered tones and terrified whimpers a few hours ago, and he was worrying about someone who was at least safe?
Pac turns his head, and looks Fit dead in the eye. "You're with me. I know you won't let anyone hurt me. But who's with him?"
"He's safe enough," Fit says. "Physically at least."
"He just didn't seem, ah," Pac struggles with his words for a moment. "Well?"
"It's not really my place to say," he replies. "But he's Philza. He'll be fine."
"Will he?" Pac asks, fretting already. "If the Federation is inside his head, making him see things..."
It's a worry Fit has too, one he really doesn't want to think about. He wants to pretend that his old friend is fine, that going and murdering blazes and magma cubes will have fixed everything. He needs to believe it, because the alternative... The alternative is there's nothing he can do.
"Do you really believe him?" Pac asks. "That there was a book there."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Fit sighs, and sits up. He turns on the lamp and stretches, looking around his room of missing texture flooring and ugly walls - the safest place he could think to bring Pac when he heard the news.
"It's not the first time," Fit says. "Phil... He swears it was a dream, that he was just sleeping. He wasn't. Tubbo and me? We checked every corner of his house. He wasn't there. Then he takes us to where he thought he was taken and he swears there's nothing weird about it? But it's full of parrots - they shouldn't have spawned there. Tubbo even found an avocado sapling."
"Philza has a lot of avocados," Pac agrees. "You think the Federation took him?"
"I'm not sure, it's not their usual behaviour," Fit frowns. "But I don't know who else it would be?"
"The codes?"
"Maybe." Fit cracks his head to the side. "But I know Phil. Whatever he saw? It terrified him. And anything that scares Philza Minecraft is nothing you ever want to see."
"Should we ask him if we can visit?" Pac has a calculating look on his face. "I can cry scared all over again, I just need to remember why. And his bunker is very safe. They might look for me in your house, but they'd never think of his."
"Why? Is my company not good enough for you?" Fit is mostly teasing.
Mostly.
"No! No, no, no," Pac waves his hands in a desperate attempt to be understood. "I just... I'm worried, you know?"
"Yeah..." Fit sighs. "Yeah, I'm worried too... I'll ask him."
Pac nods, and Fit types.
You whisper to Ph1LzA: Can I bring Pac over? We might need to stay the night.
Ph1LzA whispers to you: sure mate
Ph1LzA whispers to you: is everything okay?
You whisper to Ph1LzA: We'll explain when we get there
That's the end of that; Fit shows his communicator to Pac, who agrees.
"I'm not really faking the tears," Pac promises, already tearing up. "I just don't think about it, and then it isn't real."
Pac's not the only one acting like that, Fit presumes; Philza's constant denials even with evidence in front of him... Whatever the fuck happened in that forest, it's nothing good. Something so terrible believing his memory is at fault is somehow better.
"To Phil and Missa," Fit reminds Pac, not really needing it.
They warp together, and at the same time.
---
Philza is waiting at the top of the hatch when the pair arrive. To most people he would look entirely normal, but Fit can see the way his eyes flitter as he waves. Pac waves back, while Fit gives his traditional "oi!!!"
Philza laughs, and leads them down into the basement.
"What's up?" he asks the two of them. "Need more toast or something? I thought you were both asleep."
"No, um," Fit looks to Pac, realising they didn't quite work out what to say.
"Bagi told me more about the murders," is what Pac says, his voice dropping very quiet as he does. "She thinks... We think someone from my past is on the island."
"Shit," Philza closes his eyes for a moment. "How bad is it?"
"Last time I saw him," Pac's pace picks up; Fit squeezes his shoulder as he sees panic come in. "Last time... He nearly killed me. And the messages..." Pac grabs the hand on his shoulder and squeezes it back. "Some of them might be addressed to me."
Philza doesn't ask questions, he just glances around his children's bedroom, then looks at Fit. Fit meets his eyes.
Philza sighs, and caves.
"Alright," he says. "Do you want to sleep in Chayanne's room? I can adjust the door to just the three of us, Missa, and my eggs for now."
Fit knows it isn't for Pac's sake that Philza is changing the doors, he knows it for sure.
They get their beds set up, tucked behind the chests where a casual observer cannot see. Philza doesn't have a bed, but Fit makes them for him and Pac, placing them tucked away.
"Would you stay with us?" Fit asks, before his old friend can slip away.
Philza looks genuinely surprised by the request, "why, mate? I'll just be in the eggs' room."
"Safety in numbers, right?" Pac asks, glancing between the two. "I would... Feel safer if you were here too."
Fit knows its a manipulation tactic to convince Philza to stay, to make sure the old crow is not alone. It still rings so very true - and so very against everything ingrained within Fit's soul.
It's fine. For a few nights he can manage it, if its what his two closest friends need.
"Alright," Philza hesitates, but comes over and sits on the edge of Pac's bed. He takes off his backpack, and leans his scythe just in reach. Pac and Fit take the opportunity to remove their prosthetics, hastily reattached to travel over here, and stretch.
When Philza stands again, both of them can see how unstable he looks.
"Let's push our beds together," Fit says. "If we put Pac between us, there isn't an angle they can get him from."
Philza looks at Fit, and knows exactly what he's doing. Still, Philza crafts up a third bed, and squishes it between the two.
He nearly falls as he walks around to do it; Fit catches him, helps him steady, but is brushed off before he can say a word.
"Alright," Philza says. "Pac in the middle then. You won't get too warm, will you?"
"I'm Brazilian," Pac says. "It's always too cold here now Mike is gone."
They both see how heavily Philza drops to the bed, curling himself back to Pac and defensively ready. Fit, on his side, curls close to Pac - his one arm over him.
It's not really a surprise how quickly Pac falls asleep, with the sheer trauma and strain of the day on his back. He quickly falls into dreams, and Fit can only hope they are kind.
"Phil," he asks, once he knows Pac is asleep. "Won't you sleep?"
"You needed a guard," Philza says.
"You know we don't. You and I? We'll wake if anything so much as tests the hatch."
It's true, and they both know it.
Philza, however, doesn't speak.
At least, not for a long time; Fit considers conversation a lost cause and is about to give up and call this good enough when he hears Philza again, voice broken just like it was in the garden.
"If I sleep, will I wake?" is what Philza asks, whispered almost silently. "How will I know when the world is real again? What will I see this time?"
"I'll make sure you wake up," Fit promises, because he can. "And I'll do something to make you absolutely certain its really me."
"Promise?"
Philza sounds so weak, so small like this. Fit... Fit cannot stand it, not at all. He reaches a little further, and manages to put his hand on Phil's shoulder.
Philza's own hand reaches over, clinging to it.
"I promise," Fit says. "We'll wake you if we leave. We won't let anything weird happen, its just sleep."
Philza turns, and his eyes do not seem to trust Fit. But they are also exhausted, and desperate, and terrified.
"Go to sleep, Phil. I won't until you do."
"I'm sorry," Philza whispers, sounding absolutely broken. "Thank you. Both of you. I know... I'm sorry."
Fit squeezes his shoulder again.
"It'll be alright," Fit replies. "I've got you. I've got both of you. It's going to be okay."
Nothing else is said before they eventually fall asleep.