vacillantvoid - Tumblr blog

[vacillantvoid]

it just really sucks being a fan of a server of primarily youtubers that write & want to create stories on an smp but then never share their stories. theres such a big focus on the smp space to create highly artistic movies that document every step of the plan & algorithmically it makes sense to do so, but the viewers lose so much from it that part of me wonders if they should even care. the lsers put such a stress on this style of video & complain about how much work it is and how long it takes to edit, so they dont upload for like 8 months or longer because they have to focus on everything that happened in an arc that spans into double digit povs, hundreds of hours of conversations that happen on & off camera, and months of playing the actual game.

like the uploads are so infrequent, the audience can't stay invested unless they choose to seek out streams. people will make their day/week 1 videos & they are GENUINELY entertaining despite no lore, and then drop off once interesting things happen because they dont want to make videos on it until theyre sure its over.

with each season it just keeps getting worse cause theyre too afraid to spoil things for their videos when highlight videos are not hard to apply a theme/story arc to. minute does pretty good at locking in & releasing videos regularly but like right now the joker arc started & its really interesting but realistically i have no way to introduce friends who want to watch to it unless im willing to wait probably like 4 months minimum. a month for the arc to end, and another 2-3 for someone to make a video on it.

if youre a lifesteal youtube viewer only, you can watch the videos that exist but you have no context to the void arc really and watching mapiccs jumpings on jumper are cool but lack the story driven stakes that someone like zam has really carefully planned out in his streams. each stream has a focus & story-drive that can be reasonably condensed into highlights that build & keep the tension each new stream does & for very little work, and with the information even streams dont have access to, you can still edit and upload a huge story recap at the end of the arc/server that is beautiful and artistic and designed to hit the algorithm with the force of a thousand suns like i just dont understand what the aversion to highlights is. especially if youre never going to upload vods somewhere or plan on omitting/lying in your story videos. its so irritating as a viewer & thats not even starting on the way these giant story recaps are paced awkwardly or completely lacking in the actual, real conversations that take place. things that have good clips get replaced by narration & voiced replay shots and it sucks cause you lose so much of the natural magic that comes with the minecraft roleplay youre planning & improving when you stream and. AUGH angry angry angry angry

im mad & not being super fair cause. i understand the content grind & all the thought that goes into it especially when these are 17-19 year olds with very little drive and discipline and this is most likely not the highest priority in their lives depending on family/work/school/uni/etc but whatever im allowed to be mad on my blog

[vacillantvoid]

jokey jokes

[vacillantvoid]

cool day where absolutely nothing terrifying happened

[vacillantvoid]

soo interesting zams new plan… continuing to be cruel and violent until everybody wants him banned, so he can push minute into doing it and get people to turn against him if he doesn’t ban zam… but what does zam get from this? for this to be in any way effective he needs to ramp up the cruelty to other players otherwise they’re just gonna keep on replying back “how is this minutes fault?”. they have to truly, genuinely want him gone, not just see him as a minor inconvenience. but zam said he doesn’t even like enacting this pointless cruelty, and besides, pointless cruelty was never the point of lifesteal - violence, yes, always violence, but against people who can fight back. it’s no fun if there’s no risk involved. but killing innocent weak players is what zam has to do, has been doing, to force minutes hand - so what is his goal?

his reaction to minute bringing up his admiration for zam’s s3 self was disdain, disbelief, dismissal - he can’t believe that minute would admire him, hates him for bringing it up in the first place, and he hated when vitalasy talked about s4 too. he hates his past selves, maybe even envies their naivety, with his jaded heart so set on hurting people - on lashing out. and now he’s so focused on getting minute to ban him it seems like he’s lost sight of his original goal. he’s trying to get proof that people hate him as much as he hates himself and minute and jumper and pentar won’t budge. they won’t give it to him

[vacillantvoid]

castle arc devotions 🐰🐺

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B] epic

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made up of beasts

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whether he tries to live or die he's nothing but a pest, kill him to prove your point

[vacillantvoid]

im not colorfing dthis

[vacillantvoid]

Hiiii okay so im deciding to half-price my basic comms (busts, fullbodies, and chibis) bc i Need Some Fuckin Money. $3000 is the goal. The most you'll pay is $25 for a colored fullbody. A bust sketch is the cheapest and itll be $8. A chibi is $15. I dont have the money to blaze this so could it get spread around??? I have examples of my art under the cut (a mix of my ocs and other commissions, some have eyestrain-y color)

[vacillantvoid]

wanted to rush something out rq

[vacillantvoid]

wanted to make a unique design for S5!planet and this is what i came up with

the fur coat is supposed to be a sign of wealth and opulence he had at the start of the season so maybe after he dies to the void and becomes broke he gets rid of it? underneath is a cosmos colored vest and tie and a white shirt with bishop sleeves. pretty formal looking, as i think most of lala legion's clothes would be. i didn't think much about the pants or the shoes but i imagine they would also be some sort of formalwear, maybe the shoes would be brogues and the pants would have a fancy belt. i know nothing about fashion btw

[vacillantvoid]

jokey jokes

[vacillantvoid]

minute telling zam he used to look up to him and then immediately trying to disengage from the situation. the way zam can't help but just laugh at it because god, how naive can minute be? if he watched it all happen and still can't understand why zam is this way?

minute breaking his streak of non-reactions, his self-imposed vow of silence, just to reveal that not only is he AWARE they used to be same, but that it's not coincidence. he CHOSE this. he chose to model himself after zam's past ideals. he watched the person he looked up to be corrupted by it, and still chose to take the same path.

mapicc, bacon, and zam were never going to break minutetech by getting someone minute respects to defect, because the person he respected the most is the same person he's fighting against.

[vacillantvoid]

everyone laughs. but i draw princequito

[vacillantvoid]

devotionsss for vio :3 i am definitely Not A Year Late

design thingies ⬇️

meowmeowmeow meow meow meowmeow

[vacillantvoid]

(Lifesteal s5 spoilers for my understanding of The Players' plans, from catching incomplete sections of streams and osmosis. I do not think this is spoilers for any of them but I am not keeping up very well, so please correct me if I am wrong and I'll edit this. It's a little bit rambly, sorry.)

So, aside from the unrequited pitchflirting, my understanding of the Players' main finale plans are that they want to remove all of the buildings and restore the server or at least the main areas to looking the way they did at the start of the server, before anyone built anything. And this has some justification about like being a fresh start to the world, aside from the fact that it's a cool dramatic thing to do, but also!

It's really neat how the thing it does is specifically making the server look as though nobody ever played on it. Because the Players' whole thing, their primary conflict with primarily Jumper and Minute (I don't think they have a team name?) is that they're the only people willing to play heel, to do cool evil dramatic shit that other people can make content by fighting against, and almost everyone else (no offense intended to Squiddo or Wemmbu but they haven't been on much lately?) is either neutral, inactive, or insistently playing face?

And in the arguments between the players and Jumper and Minute, it has come up that the opposing side wants to end the server without conflict, and the Players' argument in favor of what they're doing is that it's interesting content which creates a reason for the other players to log on and participate. (This has consistently been their motivation since early in the Abyss arc)

And I think that in addition to the other justification, restoring the world to look untouched is a pretty powerful statement of "This is what you're advocating for the world to be: one where nobody ever logs on and does anything or fights or builds things that matter."

(In the interest of fairness, I know Minute was talking about like, getting people onto the server by having temporary mods during the sessions, and Branzy does have his carnival, and I do enjoy this content, but... at least to me, the fundamental strength of Lifesteal content qua Lifesteal (Minecraft's deadliest SMP), as a reason to be watching this rather than something else-- like a modded or survival series that happens to be made by the same people-- is the social effects of a bunch of people who are mostly tryhards in a competitive environment that encourages conflict and teaming and subterfuge and paranoia and big dramatic clickbaitable gestures?)

(I do in fact think it's fun and interesting when there are some people on Lifesteal who care about morality and want to do the nice thing! This is a fun source of conflict! I just... think it's more fun when that's not the majority of people who are logging on and doing anything, because then there's the risk of them uncomplicatedly winning, or successfully preventing or mitigating or discouraging the majority of the dramatic evil/annoying stuff, and then nothing happening? Lifesteal content is primarily about conflict. It's maybe a little more fun when the people involved have in-universe justifications that are not just "it's for content", painting the fourth wall with a thin veneer of "it's because it's cool and asserts our power" or some galaxybrained self-serving philosophical/metaphorical justification explaining why this supervillain stuff is the real moral thing to do, or whatever? But it's still fun as long as people are like, logging in and doing stuff and fighting or arguing with each other, and maybe having some big feelings? and at least one person is live or making videos so we can see what's happening)