#Survival ponk

[watsername]

honestly i love mcc i love competitive minecraft but the game just isn’t fun for anyone anymore. lots of players have dropped out are talking of dropping out or go on stream saying things like ‘this is the first mcc i’ve actually enjoyed in a while’ . like. thats not the sign that an event is successful . and i don’t really think that’s scott’s or the developers faults but it’s more so the culture around mcc that has changed drastically in the past year or so.

when i first started watching it, mcc was about cc’s learning to work together and competing in a fun event where there was no real stakes except the winners got a fun little token. mccs rise in popularity has snowballed a little to develop this culture of expectancy . as with all fanbases, some fans become a little too engrossed in the content and become a little overbearing about it creating this toxic culture of criticism under the guise of analysis . this isn’t to say that all mcc analysts are toxic or that the concept of vod reviewing and analysing a players performance is bad- but the attitude that a lot of the more vocal fans have been taking towards this has been .mm . not the best .

forcing players into rigid boxes based on their performance records and dogpiling them if they undeperform or over glorifying a players for performing above their average etc, it creates a competitive culture amongst fans trying to prove who suppprts the better player . very much ‘my dad is stronger than your dad’ kind of vibe.

this whole attitude also makes it less enjoyable for the players who may now feel a lot of pressure to conform to the expectations of their fans- of course everyone tries their best every event but if someone’s having a bad performance they’re more likely to experience genuine discomfort and self confidence issues continuing in the event because they know what people are expecting of them . even for lower ranking players it can affect self confidence because nobody expects anything of them .

its marketed deeply throughout the fandom as a for fun event with people who are naturally competitive being shunned for their competitive attitude but logging online and seeing people hating some people winning, hating on other teams for knocking their team out of top 2, refusing to congratulate the winners, even complaining over and over again that some aspects of the event like pvp and parkour are unfair to their streamer because their streamer ain’t good at them to the point where pvp and parkour games had their coin distribution rules changed . that doesn’t scream for fun behaviour .

that’s another thing . random changes to games that don’t necessarily need to be changed . the buildmart changes were good it make it easier to navigate and allowed people to move between sections faster and featured some new builds, the sky battle coin distribution prioritising the amount of time you survive over kills actually undermines the point of the game as a pvp heavy event . instead of fighting people you can get away with playing more defensively . we already have survival games for survivability . same goes for remixes i don’t think they typically go down well . some might but majority don’t tend to have a good reception .

even within the players themselves, there’s because quite a cliquey kind of dynamic where if the team with the most support doesn’t win, the winners are not congratulated. take last night for example . ponk and gumi scored their first wins, ponk being the first black person and as far as i can remember gumi being the second woc and first asian woman to win an mcc . let’s not even get into the diversity of mcc right now but only two people came into the voice call which lasted a while after the event to congratulate the team, only sylvee and scott and a few replies on twitter . ‘oh but the captain’ idc . i love him too but he didn’t win and it was a big day for the team that did with 50% of the team getting their first win and they played really well together. looking again at fan behaviour towards creators some players have felt unwelcome by the pressure of the competitive dynamic called bad sports for being upset with their own underperforming and alienated by the community for having multiple wins or because they just don’t want them in the event . that doesn’t scream for fun . and that in itself is really bad sportsmanship .

i think overall what started to kill mcc was it’s pandering really. i’ve fully done research on how scott puts together teams before but i still believe a lot of what goes into a team is how well it will be received. it doesn’t really force creators to get to know each other and work with each other it just takes groups of people who already know each other have relationships with each other and have relationships that are recognisable to the fanbase . this doesn’t allow people to meet and find new creators they might enjoy to watch and it prioritises some teams as the Ones To Watch because of certain dynamics pres t which undermines any smaller creators trying to make their way into the event . the insistence on changing games based on viewer complaints as opposed to suggestions from players themselves on how things can be improved is just odd to me too .

idk man mcc just isn’t what it used to be and a lot of people are becoming way too entitled over what they want to see there

[cupcraft]

You can never look at the narrative and see c!Tommy as wanting to be a hero in the end. You just can't.

c!Tommy never wanted to be a hero. In the beginning c!Tommy did tout wanting "power" (the power tower arc with c!Ponk, scamming businesses, etc) but as a young kid c!Tommy was having fun. None of this meant anything. And then we had L'Manberg, c!Tommy wanting nothing more than a home and safety with his brother and friends. Community, because that's what he always cared about (he expanded the Prime Path for that reason after all. To connect. He built tunnels/sewers under the ground first to scam then in the end wound up connecting). But he didn't want to be a hero. He just wanted to keep that community, but he wasn't allowed.

And then we have the 16th, if you want to be a hero tommy then die like one. He didn't want to be the hero. He wanted his home back. He wanted c!Wilbur back. He denied the presidency. He stepped down. He wanted them all to live in a home. Community.

New L'Manberg. New L'Manberg was a second attempt at that, and c!Tommy went on pranking and doing what life was like before L'manberg even existed, but it stopped being so simple. He was exiled from L'Manberg to protect it, when he never wanted to be in that position in the first place. He rallied people to save it during Doomsday, even though people would betray him, even though none of them really visited him (mostly due to cdreams lies ofc), even though he was exiled from there. He wanted to protect it, because it represented his Love for c!Wilbur. Again, he didn't want to be the hero, he wanted to preserve that love of the person he can't grieve because he doesn't know how especially when his ghost is still around. "I'm a person Tommy". "So are we." It was never about being a hero.

c!Tommy rests then, after putting c!Dream in prison. Not to be a herom but to protect himself, and his freedom (the discs and thus himself and tubbo). He didn't want to live in a nation (snowchester) he didnt want to fight the egg. He built a hotel. Connection, community, a place where anyone could live. The Egg got bad, Sam Nook asked him to be a hero. And guess what, he said no. He said he never wanted to be one. He even broke a piece of the egg to put in his hotel, to please them. So that everyone would come to the hotel. It could be a community again. He gave invites to everyone, even c!Dream.

And then we have his conversation with Foolish. The are you a hero or villain Tommy. And then "it depends on who you ask". And then "if you care about someone you stick by them" because it was never about heroes or villains to tommy really. It was about connection.

And c!Tommy continued on past then just trying to survive till his very end. You can look at c!Tommy as someone who stuck up for his values, as someone who wanted to protect people, but you can never look at his motivations as anything other than survival and love. He never wanted to be a hero point blank.

[viky-somebody]

pretty cool fic list

dog at the door - fluffy_papaya (absolute fave. Red King)

I still Bleed When i Fall Down - Paranoid_Pug (MCC gets attacked by watcher hunters)

And The Universe Shifts - aayaptre (fandom history)

fixed and dilated - iamsolarflare (Hypno & xB special hybrid powers shenanigans) 

Cause We Are Whole - ooFFFF (Tango becomes a robot and finds a new friend)

Nothing But Flowers - nho (Etho & myceluim resistance +nho references, unfinished and abandoned)

Still the Echoes Give Us Light - doctortrekkie (VERY good watcher grian series, HC + Traffic life series events.)

Eldritch Horror Keralis - MawoftheMagnetar (exactly what it says. but also oh so much more)

prometheus and the livewire - storm_warning (Ren the king is struggling. Doc is quiet and theres no news from him)

They say that the world was built for two - GardenerGulfie (Ren and Martyn keep meeting in different lives. aromantic Ren pog)

Torchlight - Skelew (Ren is a god of a dead city stuck in the form of a torchlight and Martyn is his only follower)

the last days of the free angel of carrows - Bee_4 (Joe Hills and Zombie Cleo run a paranormal activity agency in a modern city. Cleo is a literal undead, Joe is a renowned angel, and together they get tied with a conspiracy against the city mayor.)

Lady Cleo, King Ren, and the Trials of The Midwest - storm_warning (Cleo and King Ren get teleported to Ohio)

Against The Clock - Leopardmask (Set in season 8, Evil X got possessed and the Horse Head Farms plus Wels and Jevin decide to deal with that) (Jevin is a slime & vex hybrid)

The Sky Weighs Heavy Tonight - MaoftheMagnetar (pilot au, set in a world with genetic mutations caused by a past war. gone emotional)

Joehills' Moderately Haunted House - zombiiehorse (Modern au, Joe buys a new house for a suspiciosly low price)

Monsters Splitting Hairs - Silverskye13 (Ren, Doc and Gem live in a village, forced to disguise as humans, bc of the history of the town) (great worldbuilding)

Lonesome Dreams - doctorletmebebrave (Jimmy Solidarity gets separated after the dragon fights and accepts a deal from the Listeners)

Lend Me A Hand - SolSearchingNights (Ponk sneaks onto hermitcraft and vents to Doc about their relationship with Sam)

Redstone and Skulk - Silverskye13 (Tango's helsmit Tanguish & Helsknight, delicious hels worlduilding)

Åttiofem - MawoftheMagnetar (Iskall has a terrible day getting kidnapped and finally discovers something about his past) (slight Stresskall shipping)

there are many downsides to being a marine biologist - donnerstag (modern day au with hybrids, Doc is a scientist studying a siren!Martyn whos been newly caught for their facility) (DOCMARTYN FISH YAOI LETS GO)

Ad Nauseam - mycelium_menace (Dawndragon) (Joe Hills is stuck in a timeloop. One day, a wild Cleo appears to shake him out of his apathy)

Black skies have changed into blue - GoodTimesWithScar (Oli Orionsound finds a wild Martyn, whos been reverse isekai'ed back from the datastream)

(i'll tend to the flames you can worship the) ashes - darubyprincxx (amazing post-rapture season 1 empires work. Fwhip and Gem survived and are on the run. They find a Pixlriffs, who's been missing for 8 years.)

Ad Astra - Moonsetvoid (Secret Life, the Watchers take a special interest in Scar. He ends up teaming up with Grian again.)

перепутье долга и выбора - M.Malevich (fic in russian, Fantasy AU Smalletho, Etho is a knight serving his king Grian. Joel and Lizzie are a pair of criminals attempting an assassination at a ball)

The Beginning After The Bad Ending - EvilRat_Sabre (Season 8 collapses due to a dangerous glitch, xB and Jevin being the only survivors manage to escape to a world where they never joined hermitcraft in an attempt to get help)

misc., *mostly* smaller fics

Empires

Kids in empires, what will they do?  - Faffodill (Hermes, Michael and Grumbot messing around)

food IS a love language and i will fight you on this - darubyprincxx (Hermes overhears a discussion between his parents)

Empires Strike Back - Leopardmask (A retelling of the Hermempires crossover. The emperors decide they don't like to be pushed around.)

Count fWhip Fails a Blood Test - darubyprincxx (set in empires season 1)

survivorship bias - Bee_4 (Jimmy wakes up in a city of New Pixandria, after the season 1 Rapture, with little to no memory of who he was before)

Fuck Around and Find Out - Moonstone_Kat (Sheriff Jimmy wants to finally end all the jokes about him being a toy and decides to pull off the most elaborate prank on his friends)

Hermitcraft

a not so calculated catch - vexberries (Mermaid!Scar and a sceptic Cub, who does not believe in mermaids but gets a crush anyway)

this is about a stuffed bird - Bee_4 (Mumbo and Evil X survive the apocalypse in a modern au)

Four Hearts - PieOfDeath (Jlethubs valentines day fluff)

Wind Back The Clock - guy56 (Bdubs and Etho have existed in many worlds and timelines yet they still keep meeting each other)

Hermit City Heroes series - 2point5 (Superhero AU) (actually pretty long)

What's The Letter That Starts The Alphabet (Ayy!) - Darubyprincxx (Team STAR look at Rens Very Bad presentation)

Joe Hills, Joe Hills, Joe Hills - leopardmask (the guy gets possessed)

The Rising Moon, The Setting Sun (series) - Dillbug (Watcher Grian, worshipper Xisuma, runaway s9 Pearl + Bonus Drista)

We're not that different, you and I - swemae (grian and scar talk about vex magic)

cmon mumbo dont tell me youve never heard of a stable time loop - Sixteenthdays (Mumbo gets his soul back)

bad things come in small packages - kiwinatorwaffles (Jimmy is a Watcher and vouches for Grian to become one as well)

Found - sparxwrites (Grian saves Scar from the Boatem hole)

I lost the old, guess I need something new - SkyWillSomeTimesWrite (Grian needs glasses)

What Does It Mean To Truly Live? - Wrenny_Fang_03 (an okay Watcher Grian thing where Xisuma is also an ex-Watcher. not my thing tbh but it was alright)

A Dog's Nose - dontrollthedice (Ren asks about Etho and Beefs relationship)

Guys and Dolls - Leopardmask (cool Doll Grian concept)

Sticker War - darkleweather

Name-Calling is NOT supposed to suck this badly (One chapter with a cool concept. Grian hears everyone who says his true name)

Buddy System - (Ren & Grian in the End)

Healing Is a Four Letter Word - Hypno_cat (Grian is a cryptid, joins hc in secret and hides in the woods)

an observer in a land of none - jaysflight (vague fantasy, watcher Grian (Veld) and Scar) (really loved this)

Inversing Allocation - Interjection (5+1 watcher Grian stuff)

Following in Pandoras footsteps - Paranoid_Pug (Grian gets a surprise present)

send me a wave via subspace - FangirlOfPower (Joe is stuck outside the world and communicates with Cleo via voicemail)

When This World Is No More (The Moon is All We'll See) - Silverskye13 (Season 8 moon crush, sad)

To Convey a Certain Brilliance - Bee_4 (Joe dies repeatedly while trying to find hermits after the moon fell)

An Inhuman Waltz - MawoftheMagnetar (Jev stole one of Cleo's armor stands for unknown reasons)

It Takes Two to Tango - EyelessFog (Tango realizes he might be a system)

The Guppy Geiser's Miraculous Return - simplydm (the guppy geiser returns!)

Investigative Journalism - jaz_it_up (Pix and Sloy explore ruins of the season 8 world to find if anyone survived)

Heart Storm - Duchess_Of_Dumpsters (one cool chapter of Joe and Wels shipping)

The guy who conquers death- ooFFFF (Zedeath tries to hunt down Joe)

The Orange Promise - bloop_im_a_frog_now (Cub and Scar are forced to get engaged by Cub's rich parents)

Назад на землю - Refling (fic in russian, Tango tries the boat floating glitch and gets a ptsd flashback)

De Roeping // The Calling - AstronautBeans (fic in Dutch with eng translation, water on the server turned everyone weird, xB and Hypno are on the run)

Put Down Your Roots - HitheePrithee (modern AU Doc/Xisuma, the two have known each other for a while and know how to work around each other's disabilities while living together. soft)

dream smp~

passerine - blujamas, thcscus

His Curse of Binding - bari_astralis (greek mythology themed au with reincarnation into modern times. the events of the early dream smp seasons are ancient history) (cried my eyes out)

Incarnate Inchoate - underoriginal (Dream is sent to hermitcraft and is forced to rethink his life choices)

Up For a Fight? (Tommy escapes the server to live a life by a fighting arena, changes in a lot of ways) (some typos in the text)

Black Bird Fly - MollyPollyKinz (everybody has wings and magic powers and tommy is a kidnapped prince)

It Feels Like Murder (Dream finds Sams body in the prison)

something you can’t bottle up - doingthewritethings (Tommy is slowly dealing with trauma)

Watch Untill The End - Noem (Dsmp fic in czech, a small reimagining of how the server was created, tied in with Evo and Tekkit lore)

The places that I've been to, I can't remember what I saw - metatronfell (Tubbo is dealing with DID symptoms)

How to Sex Vol. 4-58 - Goldenrayofsunshine (Tommy is stuck with Dream in prison and writes books.)

others

that one time aztro went to space and came back with an alien - SDMP Backstory

Ghosts in the Sky - trafficpose (space au Docmartyn)

Minecraft but I have SEX in PARKOUR CIVILIZATION (Evbo wants to get a child to pass the Parkour Civilization legacy onto. Masterpiece. Psychic damage warning.)

[chrysalizzm]

c!ponk - [and it really does hurt when you love someone]

richard siken, a primer for the small weird loves / lovejoy, it’s golden hour somewhere / cryptofhoney, where the high wires drop (where the fat crows fly) / halsey, 1121 / paul simon, orchard on fire / mili, a turtle’s heart / chrysalizzm, little death / bibi, jotto / the paris review, survival as a creative force: an interview with ocean vuong / julie, flutter / frank bidart, the ghost / halsey, i am not a woman, i’m a god / a softer world, hindsight is bullshit

transcript and links attached here.

[mcytrecursive]

Nomination Overview - Post-Apocalyptic AU

A niche tag, so you'd think? Well not THAT niche, not in this fandom. 7 post-apocalyptic works so far, including our longest work nominated to date, (over half a million words), and several art AUs!

Title: this is about a stuffed bird Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36163102/chapters/90146260 Fandom: Hermitcraft SMP Author: Bee_4 Relationships: Mumbo Jumbo & Evil Xisuma Characters: Mumbo Jumbo, Evil Xisuma Length of the work: 78,043 words Genre: Action/Adventure, AU, Character Study, Friendship, Horror, Post-Apocalyptic AU, Type: Fic Summary: In which Mumbo crosses several towns, learns some creative methods of self-defense, fights some monsters, sees things no human is meant to have seen, befriends a stranger, steals multiple cars, has inconvenient moral scruples, grows increasingly terrified of his own culpability in the apocalypse, grows a spine, blows up at least one building, accidentally prevents a murder, and attempts to find his best friend in the futile but ever-burning hope the man’s still alive. He has to say, he’s so exhausted and terrified that he thinks he might just be mad? (OR: the one where, after most of humanity turns into a series of terrifying monsters, Mumbo decides he’s going to risk his life on an apocalypse road trip to try to find out if Grian is alive. Things, as you might imagine, devolve from there.)

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Title: greener grasses Rating: E-rated Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31163336/chapters/79676620 Fandom: Dream SMP Author: Apocynaceae Relationships: Quackity/Schlatt, Quackity&Karl, Quackity/Eret Characters: Quackity, Schlatt, Karl Jacobs, BadBoyHalo, Awesamdude, Ponk, Tommyinnit Length of the work: 569,475 words Genre: AU, Crossover, Drama, Horror, Modern AU, Post-Apocalyptic AU, Slow Burn, Time Travel, College AU Type: Fic Summary: Twenty-two years after the Survival Multiplayer event, Quackity has dreams of attending a law program in a walled city out West. Desperate to pay for expenses during his next semester at ManbergU, he accepts a TA position with his former professor. It's Quackity's last chance to get out of Manberg. It's his worst mistake. Features ghosts, time travel, possession, alternate universes, nonconsensual drug use, academic misconduct like you would not believe, an apocalypse, and midterm drama. 

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Title: Space Mining AU Link: here and here Fandom: 3rd Life SMP Author: wszczebrzyszynie Relationships: Team Ranchers, Cledubs, Ethubs, Scarian, Treebark, Convex brothers, ImpSkizz, Flower Husbands. Zedaph, Doc, Pearl and Gem are also characters. Everything mentioned as platonic, except romantic Jizzie. Characters: Tango and Jimmy Genre: Action/Adventure, AU, Drama, Post-Apocalyptic AU, Space AU Type: Art Summary: Space Mining AU. Tango was an engineer, became a wanted terrorist after he blew up Callisto, a moon where he was doing illegal skulk mining. He blew it up alongside other miners after finding out that skulk is alive, parasitic and infecting people, but he ended up being the sole survivor of the explosion, and the skulk wasn't completely sealed off. He ends up living with Desert Duo for a while (a pair of also dangerous criminals), and that's where he meets Jimmy. It kind of all goes downhill from there.

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Title: the last days of the free angel of carrows  Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/41524917 Fandom: Hermitcraft SMP Author: Bee_4 Relationships: Mainly Joe & Cleo & Pearl Characters: Joe, Cleo and Pearl Length of the work: 79,327 words Genre: Action/Adventure, AU, Casefic, Fantasy AU, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Apocalyptic AU, Angels & Demons AU Type: Fic Summary: The Atsign Agency: run by Joe Hills and the zombie Cleo, they're here to solve all of your supernatural problems, hauntings, magical accidents, and also just about any contracting work or errands you need if you're willing to have it done cheaply by two unqualified odd jobbers struggling to make rent. After over a decade together in the city of Carrows, the two of them frequently see things and deal with things that are probably a bit too ridiculous to name, and have the experience to handle it, if not particularly frequently the money. When the mysterious (and clearly very rich) Pearl Moon walks into their agency, offering them a massive payment for a simple job, what are they to do but accept? Yeah, they may be about to regret that one. This job is going to be anything but simple, and the entire City of Angels may be at stake. Careful, Atsign Agency: the past is watching.

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Title: future site of something Better [a fabulous killjoys au] (Restricted) Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/48146797/chapters/121412023 Fandom: Dream SMP Author: hallmarked_error Relationships: Jack Manifold & TommyInnit, Ranboo & TommyInnit, Tubbo & TommyInnit, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & TommyInnit & Phil Watson, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & Phil Watson, Jschlatt & Wilbur Soot Characters: Tommyinnit, Technoblade, Philza, Wilbur Soot, Jack Manifold, Ranboo, Tubbo Length of the work: 54,020 words Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, AU, Found Family, Post-Apocalyptic AU Type: Fic Summary: a fabulous killjoys au featuring the cast of the dsmp (plus a few others thrown in for good measure), inspired by the concept album by mcr and the comics by gerard way.

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Title: Last of Us + Tntduo Link: here Fandom: Dream SMP Author: ashthefrogprin Relationships: Quackity/Wilbur Characters: Quackity, Wilbur Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, AU, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Apocalyptic AU, Romance, Slow Burn Type: Art Summary: A series of images depicting quackbur in a The Last of Us AU, followed by a brief summary of a few scenes the artist was imagining. Wilbur has a shotgun; Quackity has an axe. They're both traveling across the country together trying to find a safe harbor with other survivors-- and, as it turns out, being in close quarters with someone during life-threatening situations means the two of you tend to bond. Odd thing, that.

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Title: Just the Two of Us  Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45549838/chapters/114615043 Fandom: Dream SMP Author: eepyvoid Relationships: Philza & Tommyinnit Characters: Philza & TommyInnit  Length of the work: 6,675 words Genre: Angst, Dark Fic, Found Family, Post-Apocalyptic AU Type: Fic Summary: As the world descended into zombie apocalypse driven madness, the number of living people was cut in third - two of those people being Philza Minecraft, an infamous criminal who was wanted by everyone for all the wrong reasons, and a small former 'lab rat' kid, TommyInnit, a small and scared child being free for the first time. The two meet, and team up, both not sure how mere friendship looks like. Or, Two traumatized blondes bonding over their shared lack of other people to trust in their life, under the looming threat of the zombie apocalypse.

[localsharkcryptid]

More Ouroboros Designs!!

Three leafwings and not one of them looks like a traditional leafwing. Nor does the secret fourth Leafwing.

Agaric (GNF) - Named after the Fly Agaric Mushroom (aka the mushroom 🍄) - Blue Flower phase - I'm probably going to play with his coloration more, to probably add in some browns but overall Im rather happy with him! Also considering making his design become duller or paler during the later arcs of the story.

Ponk (I have no ideas for their name and it is driving me insane) - Autumn phase - Ponk!! While I have no wof style name for them I do have a design that works very well. Debating on making their cowl (I think that's what it's called?? I'm unsure so please correct me if I'm wrong here ^^) cover more of their head/neck to match their dsmp design more but for now I'm happy with this! Also I'm thinking of giving them leafspeak but it's specifically towards their lemon tree.

Magnolia (Eret) - Autumn phase - Them! The Icon of gender! While I am working on the world building for her immortality this is probably the final design, sporting deep reds and golds I think it gives a very 'royal' appearance which plays well with their character. Also I have zero idea for why her eyes are like that, they just are, no sight problems just funky eyes.

---

Also to expand on the Leafwings have color phases idea:

Phases in this case is being used to refer to the "variant", much like how african bush vipers are refered to as having "phases".

The Leafwings of the continent of Ouroboros are incredibly varied in their coloration, due to the large amount of refugees from the tree wars that ended up on the continent their color schemes remain vibrant and varied! In juxtaposition to their Pantala dwelling relatives, who have all but lost the color variations due to the need for survival and camouflage within the poison jungle.

Leafwing color phases are usually either Forest or Autumn, the classic greens or shades of orange, red, brown and yellow. There are also flower phases, which are rarer and show off brighter colors - usually as accents but with some outliers!

Plants come in an absurd amount of colors, so why shouldn't leafwings? :]

[silverstrying]

Through The Ages Collab - Sam (Assyrian Empire 932-612BCE) and Ponk (Persian Empire 550-330BCE)

DEFINITELY didn't panic and decide to completely redo my project as a painting the night before 😖👍

Here, they're both dressed as (hyperbolic) kings of their time.

(Pay no notice to the fact that the time periods are in direct succession and the Persians *definitely* didn't conquer the Caldeans and Ponk *definitely* wouldn't have killed Sam they're besties okay nodders)

Look under the read more for details and !!~~fun ancient fashion facts~~!! :D

Ponks outfit looks like red, white, and black, but it's actually red, white, and (very dark) blue! In ancient Persia, each class wore a different color - the priests wore white, the military wore red, and the farmers wore blue. The king wore a combination of the three for the combination of social classes that he represented!

Sam is wearing a felt mitre(fancy hat) with fringed woolen lapets (that's what's coming over his shoulder, they're attached to the hat) and a tiara with carnelian (cough redstone) inlays. His staff is also meant to have a "redstone" head, and the head of ponks is meant to be a lemon! All noblemen had a staff that would be carved full of things to represent them.

The robes or drapery you typically think of when thinking of ancient Mesopotamia are called "Kaunakes". The longer your kaunakes, or robes, are, the higher class you are (because you can afford more fabric!) I really meant to make Sams kaunake even longer, but eh details get lost sometimes.

We tend to think of "ancient clothing" as having been threadbare and brown. This is mostly because of the few representations we have (figurines and wall carvings, etc, because almost no clothing survives from that period), all the paint has come off! In reality their clothing (the high class at least) was extremely colorful, and tended to be full of bright patterns, to the piont that we would think of it as extremely tacky today.

Basically all "ancient Mesopotamian fashion" is Drapes+Gold+FRINGE!!!=high class. They like. REALLY liked fringe. And Gold. And draping. But otherwise the combinations were honestly quite endless! Especially with the Persians, they were well known for adopting any adjacent cultures clothing into thier fashion, so Persia had a particularly diverse range of clothing styles!

I really liked doing this project, I was kinda shocked with how much I learned! There's a surprising amount of information and also a surprisingly little amount of information on ancient Mesopotamian clothing, mostly because like. None of it survives lol.

[basilone]

Because she is technically yours, I am going to ask you for Maggie Paquin and a kiss at war's end - but who she kisses is entirely up to you! Have fun!

Maggie, baby, it's been too long. I love her so very much, but she's absolutely more yours than mine at this point in time. 😉 But I'm really excited about this, and I hope I'm side-stepping your fic canon just a little here! (And thank you for letting me taking her for a spin!) You know who she kisses. You know it's gonna be Lieb. Here's how that happens! Want to send me a prompt like Merc did? Read the details here.

there's a light in everything

She should be glad. Should be joining in the smiles – under the shouts of how lucky are we! – and should definitely be making use of the last remnants of champagne. The thing is, and Maggie Paquin knows full well how utterly absurd this thing is, she’s not feeling very lucky. Or very thrilled.

Her shoulders hunch as she shoves her hands into her pockets. Her fingers close around a stray lighter and a packet of gum reflexively. She balls them into her fists, until the lighter chafes against her skin and the packet feels squishier than before. Her feet kick at the rocks that litter this side of the water, further out than their usual swimming-and-diving haunt.

At first, there’d been victory in Europe. Which had been more than fine, really, and the ensuing party had made up for any lingering doubts about it at the time. And she’d still had those doubts come in, alone, later on, staring up at the ceiling in a bedroom that was at least triple the size of what she had at home. Doesn’t know how anyone would not have them, not after everything.

It’d just been easier than victory in Japan is proving to be. After all, once the doubts had set in so had the information reels about the war over in the Pacific. She’d married her doubts to that – to the crabs, so many of them she thinks she could’ve set one on Webster every night and still have been overrun herself, and the flamethrowers – and it’d been all right to act nervous when even Captain Speirs had blinked faster than usual at what they were seeing. The war hadn’t been over after all – all those damn calisthenics they’d made them do, with Sarge gettin’ real antsy every time they got it wrong – and there was something reassuring about that.

Maggie takes aim at a particularly large rock. Kicks it so viciously that it rolls down ponk ponk splat straight into the water.

“I’d ask what that rock ever did to you, Packin’, but I don’t wanna get my shin kicked next. Fuck.”

She rolls her eyes before she realizes her back’s turned to him. “It’s not about the rock,” she bites out, casting a glance full of ire over her shoulder. Rolls her eyes again for good measure. “Your shin’s looking better to me by the minute.”

Joe Liebgott actually smirks at that. “Tempting, is it?”

“I’d kick it if I thought you’d survive the way it’d snap under you like a little twig.”

“Since when am I off the Lieb-must-die list?”

Maggie huffs out a breath. Clenches her fist so tightly around her lighter that she can feel the imprint it’s making in the palm of her hand. Since there are people that actually want you dead, she almost says, except she’s not that cruel and the world’s been unkind aplenty already.

“Dunno,” she shrugs instead, turning back to the water. “Guess since they told us we’re at peace now.”

“Are we?”

Maggie’s eyebrow raises imperceptibly when more rocks are kicked down to the water by feet other than her own. It’s a loaded question – are we at peace? – that she hasn’t got the faintest hope of answering. It’s like she’s in a tunnel, these days, one of those dark tunnels that’s barely got a light at the end, one that’s almost pressing in on her every time she tries to breathe. And she’s got trouble breathing now, doesn’t she, now that the soil’s come up to her mouth and the smoke feels like it’s never gonna clear her lungs and the light goes completely pale and there’s just no air and…

“Breathe, Packin’,” she hears as if through a fog. “Fuck. Breathe, come on”– and she knows it’s Lieb, knows it’s his hands on her upper arms and his breath on her face, but she’s all inhale and no exhale and feeling damn light-headed for it –“come on, Mags, don’t do this to me, fucking breathe.” And just like that, she’s bundled up against a very firm chest with arms closing in tight around her, so warm that she startles in a breath and exhales a hiccup instead. “There you go, that’s right, breathe already. Fuck.”

Joe Liebgott’s head rests atop her own as she shudders through the next breath, then the breath after that. She hiccups again upon the exhale, not burying it in his uniform fast enough if his sharp Mags is anything to go by. She’s heaving through her breaths now, heaving until her stomach joins the somersault her lower belly’s making, and he’s just standing here holding her like that’s a thing they do now. It’s never been a thing they do – aside from shoving each other and one unfortunate foxhole-share in the past – and it’s that fact alone that’s shaking her loose from the tunnel.

“If you wanted a hug,” she says, coughing now that he’s squeezing her even tighter, “you should’ve asked.”

“Right, yeah,” he huffs, “it’s about the hug.” She can practically feel his exasperation take up root in his belly, pressed against her like he is. “Sure, Mags, whatever.”

And she’s Mags now, like she’s sort-of been since things went to shit and they got round to talking about futures as if they had any. He skipped straight past Maggie and definitely shot straight past Paquin – she’d joked, once, about Marguerite being too much for his tongue to handle – and somewhere in between all the namecalling he’d decided to land on Mags.

“Joe,” she whispers, trying to answer in kind for reasons she can’t fully fathom, “you can let go now.”

He does, in a way, except his hands now come to rest warm on either side of her face and he’s still standing too close. His eyes are closed – like they’re stumbling around in the dark, like he’d still know her blind regardless – and his breath exhales out of him in shorter puffs than usual. He looks tired, this up close, strung out somehow, and there’s such an absence of joy that Maggie can’t help but step closer to.

It’s as if she’s trying to fill a void. Like this is what she can do, even though she’s much smaller than him and hasn’t a hope of filling up a space that big. Like this is what he lets her do – and he does, she realizes, when his hands land at the base of her neck – and like this can mean something.

Maggie lets go of the pack of gum in her pocket. Lets go of the lighter, too, and gives her left hand a little shake to clear the worst of its imprint. She doesn’t trust her hands to be soft, or gentle, or anything of the dainty sort. Doesn’t think it matters any now. It’s the end of war, and she knows they’ve both never been more afraid.

“I don’t wanna go home,” she says, casual as anything, adjusting his collar and brushing her knuckles against his jaw. “I don’t know. The girls keep talking about it. Keep asking me what I’m gonna do when I get back.” She shrugs. Bites her lip as her hand lands on his neck and stays there. “I haven’t a fucking clue.”

“Yeah,” he exhales, breath warm on her cheek. “Know the feelin’. Guess you could come live in the trunk of my cab.” He chuckles, low, not mean. “You’d fit.”

“Yeah? I have a big personality, Joe. Worth a passenger’s seat at least.”

His eyes crack open just a sliver, just enough. “You upgrading yourself already? Ungrateful, fuck.”

“I’m worth it,” she grins, prodding at his chest for emphasis. “You don’t even know.”

“Don’t I,” he starts, and –

She thinks he stoops down and kisses her, first. He thinks it was her, or so she learns later, stepping up on tiptoe and kissing him first. They’ll argue about it – she knows this even as she’s kissing him, kissing Joe – and they’ll bicker about who’s first just to find someone to blame for it. But there’s no blaming this, no blaming the fire that shoots through her at the surprised sound he makes when she doesn’t pull back, no blaming his hands going to her waist while she invites him closer.

It’s the goddamn end of war and I’m kissing Joe Liebgott, she thinks, filing it away as the one thing from this victory day she’ll never tell Niamh about.

“Mags,” he says, wondering.

She wants to bolt.

“Joe,” she says instead, and reaches up to mess with his hair just to start a fight. “You fucking moron.”

[bonesandthebees]

[Phil hummed. “So it confirms what we already know. Wilbur was never Schlatt’s actual target, he was just collateral.”] yeah, but that’s not going to stop Phil from getting revenge. Which given the emotional constipation, is probably a way of dealing with his anger at himself for not realising Schlatt might make an attempt on Tomys’ live to try and secure Quackity’s throne and sending his own son along on the journey.

And Phil still knows this letter is not enough proof because 1. Sam is a useless piece of trash 2. It is still an incripted letter and 3. Schlatt’s money gives him too much damn power.

[Wilbur might not have been his target, but he now had to live with the consequences of surviving an attack like that. Phil won’t let something like that go unpunished.] intentions don’t matter, Phil’s son was hurt and he will make Schlatt pay. And he’s very aware of how much damage this did to his kid even beyond physical because he can read his boy that well.

[Every limp, every nightmare, every unwarranted flinch] see he did notice that flinch when getting his boy back. And he has no idea it was because his kid expected disappointment in his eyes. So of course he blames that on the trauma too (Tbf, the trauma probably made it worse).

I do like that they still run their theories by Wilbur (actually this is something else Phil might have wanted to say or ask when Ponk came in, though it fits less with the conversation, not that he could not changes topics).

And Wilbur is smart, he comes to the same conclusion, maybe has knows for a bit too. Even without thinking of Quackity’s warning. [“Schlatt.” Wilbur lifted the dagger and tested the weight in his hand.] <- definitely no foreshadowing to future beheading at all, (Phil wants that man dead)

[Wilbur’s heart pounded in his chest as he realized what they were discussing. “What are we going to do about him?”/The look in Phil’s eyes made chills run down his spine./“We have a plan.”] (scratch that, Phil and Techno want him dead, Niki too probably).

My guess is that they will frame him for something that will get him beheaded. It’ll be hard to prove he caused this assassination, but they could frame him for a different one, maybe make it look like he was planning to assassinate Niki or Sam. I’m sure there’s options and I don’t know them yet, but I will patently wait to watch this unfold.

(Also, getting rid of the threat on Tomys’ life will only make him more trusting and loyal.)

(2/2)

-🌲

oh 100% phil wants revenge even though wilbur wasn't the target. wilbur still got permanently injured and traumatized by the experience so schlatt has to pay for that, even if it wasn't his intention. he's also so furious with himself for not seeing this coming. phil really hates being taken by surprise and with his own son's life on the line, he's never going to let something like that happen again.

yeah, a single letter really isn't enough to accuse one of the most powerful men in the country of attempting to murder a potential crown prince. even if sam WAS competent he would still have to relent to that.

actually, that was exactly what phil and techno wanted to talk to wilbur about before ponk came in! he was going to change the subject but they got interrupted. probably for the best because wilbur was not really in the best headspace to talk about that just yet. better that he wait a few days and feel more steady before playing the logic guessing games again.

literally they all want that man dead schlatt has done one thing for sure in this story and it's make a ton of enemies

hmm interesting yes framing could definitely work though it would be tricky. or it might be simpler than you think. you'll find out soon :)

[cdroloisms]

can I have a refresher on the plot of the just him and me au? I got super brainrotty over it when y'all first made it but then i forgot my tumblr password for like ages

hello hello again anon! don't worry talking about jmah is like my bread and butter i can do it literally all day every day it's SO bad this AU changed my brain chemistry forever i stg 😭

here's a link to my tag on the AU, and if you go to @theminecraftbox kat also has her tag linked for you to look through a lot of JMAH rambling XD. For a general outline on the concept and timeline, JMAH (or just me and him AU) is a concept that starts with c!Sam, freshly killed at the end of the Daedalus arc, getting tp-ed back into his old body right as c!Tommy is about to enter for his first prison visit on January 21st, 2021. He comes to terms with what's going on pretty fast and decides that this time around, he's going to take things more seriously. This time, he's going to do it right.

That leads into the JMAH prison arc, which--true to the name of the AU--consists of just j!Sam and j!Dream for as long as j!Sam can manage it. Here's a quick rundown of major events:

January 21st, 2021 - j!Sam first gets tp-ed into the prison again. He prevents Tommy from actually ever visiting Dream, marching him out of the prison and immediately banning visitors to Pandora's Vault entirely. He goes back to the cell, freaks out at a very confused j!Dream, confiscating most of the items in the cell (taking the clock, blowing up the chest and lectern and cauldron to collect them), j!Dream's potatoes, and his mask. j!Dream fights when j!Sam tries to take his mask--it doesn't go very well. He gets pretty badly beaten and j!Sam himself doesn't come out unscathed either.

January 22nd, 2021 - j!Sam modifies the cell entirely--adds a lot more dispensers along the back, adding the crying obsidian, and most importantly adding a row of glass with a piston door to keep j!Dream locked in the back of the cell with only about two or three blocks of space from the glass to the back wall. A return system very similar to the one in c!Ponk's cell is installed. j!Dream is reeling and injured and kinda in shock about what the hell is going on with Sam, what - and as j!Sam starts putting harming potions in the dispensers above his head, he starts to realize that. Oh. He might be a little bit fucked.

January 24th, 2021 - j!Quackity tries propositioning j!Sam for Las Nevadas. j!Sam emphatically refuses, makes some weird implications about j!Quackity wanting to torture j!Dream (??? what ??? like not that the thought didn't cross his mind but what the FUCK??) and is ultimately pretty cagey and aggressive in ways that pretty thoroughly sour j!Quackity to the guy, especially when he learns about the weirdness that happened with j!Tommy's prison visit. The two of them start hanging out more, and in the process start theorizing that maybe j!Sam is in with the enemy--maybe j!Dream has played them all. (Around this time, j!Sam also seals up the Egg Room. Okay, problem boxed fixed, not his problem now!)

~March, 2021 - Lacking any updates from inside the prison, j!Ranboo sets off the TNT in a last ditch attempt to try and communicate with the man inside. j!Dream is heartened by the reminder that he's not been forgotten, but also faces Consequences for this. He's slowly coming to terms with j!Sam's deal and trying to figure out what the hell he's going to have to do to survive it and get out of here. On the other hand, the TNT freaks out j!Sam badly--even now, even after everything he's done, j!Dream is still hiding things from him. Still getting things past him. It's a pretty rough day for them both.

~ May 2021 - j!Quackity and j!Tommy's efforts to break into the prison to figure out what the hell is going on finally bears fruit in a convoluted, definitely-should-not-work-in-the-slightest-by-any-stretch-of-the-imagination kind of plan that. Miraculously. Somehow. Does manage to work, through a combination of j!Sam being a little too careless and distracted and hey like after you try different things like a hundred different times maybe you'll come up with something a little less bound to fail on step one and sheer, plain, dumb luck - they manage to break in while dragging Ghostbur with them, wanting information on what's going on (and j!Quackity, of course, looking for information on the revive book.) Once they get to the cell, all hell breaks loose - in the chaos, as j!Sam makes harming rain down from the dispensers to try and gain control, j!Dream ends up reviving j!Wilbur before j!Sam arrives in the cell. j!Sam maims and kills j!Quackity, taking two fingers and a life, and then once again throws j!Tommy out of the prison. IT's the first major deviance from the old timeline, and it is. a Huge blow to j!Sam, who has otherwise been convincing himself that everything has been running smoothly thus far. It's a awful cocktail of some of the moments from the old timeline where he felt the most out of control (taking Ponk's arm, watching Tommy die, being unable to stop Dream from reviving Wilbur, Quackity's visits) and it shakes him up badly. His relationships have been slowly burning as this timeline has proceeded - despite managing to not torture and maim j!Ponk this time around (woo great job for that one j!Sam) they had a very messy + very public breakup, j!Tommy's complaining hasn't really done his reputations any favors, cutting off the rest of the Badlands and not keeping j!Bad and j!Ant as guards hasn't helped their relationships at all, and he's also just . Been holing himself in the prison. This incident gets pretty publicized and only ends up making his reputation worse - and j!Sam ends up spending even more time within the prison.

~ November, 2021 - Tired of j!Sam's bullshit, j!Quackity's planning goes from 'trying to figure out what's going on' to full on Butcher Army, time to plan a coup. Enlisting j!Techno for the cause (hey, they've got to have a shared grudge against j!Sam, right?) he starts planning a takeover of the prison. He's going to take out j!Sam, trap him, j!Dream, and j!Techno inside the prison, and get the keycards for himself. Time for him to be top dog, whatever. His plan goes off pretty well...except for how j!Techno had a stasis pearl and manages to leave before he gets to him. Whoops. Still, he's got j!Dream and j!Sam and an axe he's been grinding for months--time to get the keycard and get the Revive Book and get his fucking revenge for good.

~ end of November, 2021 - j!Techno returns not too long after gathering some supplies necessary to break in and break out of the prison again, the weak points being. Much, much more shoddily patched together, given that they were fixed by j!Quackity. At this point, j!Quackity has been visiting the cell daily for about two weeks, mostly focusing on j!Sam because he's really fucking angry about the whole "oh yeah i maimed and killed you lol" thing and because...honestly j!Dream isn't even as fun or as satisfying, mans has a pretty high pain tolerance and isn't nearly as scared of him as he is of disappointing his Warden >:/. j!Techno arrives, j!Quackity books it the hell out of there, and he's left with j!Sam and j!Dream in the prison. He's here to break j!Dream out, obviously...but what to do with Sam? Dream tells him he'll handle it.

about a week later - j!Dream returns. j!Sam had told Quackity about the time travel, j!Dream wants the keycards (and with the threat of j!Quackity coming back, j!Sam is definitely pretty willing to give them over, relatively speaking) and...j!Dream wants answers. JMAH Daedalus goes on for a stretch of time that I don't think we firmly decided on before j!Dream kills j!Sam with an axe to the heart, and...j!Sam is left back at where he started. One life down and wondering how it all went so wrong.

Of course, these are just most of the main ~events~ in the timeline and honestly, these don't really touch on how things develop within the prison at all. That's covered more in other posts about JMAH--which, definitely check em out if you're interested :D Or ask more questions, of course. I'm always down to brainrot about themb.

[pomellon]

Hello ! In your dsmp dragon au, where are Puffy and Hannah ? Is Puffy an adult one (friends with Skeppy maybe) or an hatchling ? What about Hannah ?

Are Ponk and Seepekay around too ? I got many questions ahah so I condensed them.

Have a nice day ! Or night

I haven't quite decided yet, but I def want Hanna to be around the same age as Dream and Co. Probably going to keep her a grey eyes like a few of the others, but I plan to make her guardian class.

Puffy is probably going to be around the same age as Skeppy, old enough to have gotten her god claim before the extinction event, but I haven't decided what her element should be. Maybe water or air? But I know for sure I want her to be a nurse turned guardian!

Ponk is going to be important and involved with some plot points with Sam, he's a nature scholar! I'm still playing with some ideas but I've been liking a scene where they first met when trapped in a gladiator arena and have to rely on each other to survive. Ponk is also part of the reason why Sam turns from guardian class to scholar.

I don't have anything planned for Seepeekay yet, and I'm unsure if I will draw concepts for all the characters (since I'm still not done with all the cat au refs and that au is like two years old?) but I'm open to suggestions for what his class and element he should be <3

And never worry about sending several questions or long asks, they really help me focus my ideas and thoughts and are a sure way to make me create more content for the aus :D

[watsername]

like as a full sapnap fan and someone who enjoys the competitive minecraft thing i don’t think sapnap will stick around in mcc for much longer .

like wether u like him or not he’s one of the best participants in the event and that in itself will cause a lot of people to dislike him - think things along the lines of ‘oh he just wins every event it’s not fair when is he getting benched he always wins’ type things . it also makes people perceive him as a difficult player because he tends to take command of his team and because of his already negative reputation words like ‘dictating’ and ‘bossy’ and ‘aggressive’ get thrown into the mix by fans- i don’t think i’ve ever seen this kind of sentiment shared by creators themselves, in fact most tend to say they’re happy to follow sapnap’s lead in pvp centred games.

another thing is sapnap’s motivation . the coin regali for pvp games has made them more about survivability and less about the actual pvp element so the things that sapnap does actually excel in have been sort of sidelined and this seems like it’s to make things easier for other players who aren’t good at pvp but i mean i think it’s stupid bc no other game has been fucking baby proofed for ppl who are bad at it . tell ur cc to get in the practise server instead of yelling at ppl that the games aren’t fair .

anyway . having his actual skills minimised and then having quite a few wins means that when he does win, nobjdy gives a shit . look at the last event- gumi and ponk scored their first wins in the event and only scott and sylvee acruallt joined call to congratulate them because they don’t like sapnap and punz . to the point where gumi had to say on twitter that she genuinely it felt that people didn’t like that her team won but she was still proud of herself for it . people dislike sapnap’s teams so much that they’re not willing to join the call to congratulate the players and fans online purposefully leave him out of their congratulatory posts .

if i was sapnap i’d feel like shit playing in the event . a talented person not valued by the community for his skills or appreciated for his successes id be demoralised too . and he said that . he said nobody likes him and he’s thinking of retiring and it’s so sad that sapnap genuinely has a good time with people who aren’t so weird about him even just neutral about him but still can’t feel good in what he does because nobody wants him to win nobody cares when he does and fans of the event go out of their way to tell him they don’t want him in the event altogether . it’s sad . he obviously enjoys competitive minecraft . i don’t think that he’s gonna put up w ppl ignoring the value of his success much longer bc i sure as hell wouldn’t

[ladyddanger]

my mind is now consumed by the headcannon that c!Quackity’s retconned death at the manburg festival was him being falsely declared dead.

The explosion knocked Quackity out and when doctors found him he wasn’t breathing and his heart wasn’t beating. Some quick thinking from Ponk restarted his heart and Quackity survived, somehow managing to escape with no lasting effects.

[dykes4timrand]

chbomb?

hbombs dsmp character !!! i feel like i’m one of 10 people who cared about them THEY WERE CANONICALLY NONBINARY or maybe that was just a dream idk. anyways h didn’t rlly stream lore much and what he did has been lost to time (no vod archive) so what is left is from other people’s vods :(

but yeah ch was so interesting and fun to me they arrived on the server on election day, they were one of erets knights, and the people they were closest to were eret, niki, ponk, and fundy. misferns had nothing on them.

ch helped with the destruction of l’manburg partly out of loyalty to niki and fundy, partly bc they thought it would be fun, thry gave some tnt to techno. after doomsday they went like a million blocks away and went into isolation, giving all their gear to niki (which i could write a whole essay on) and giving her a speech about on their thoughts of her revenge arc, which boiled down to “bad deeds cause bad deeds”. then they became an alcoholic, started AA, became a cat maid, was a shitty dj at the red banquet, helped cponk steal the keycard to the prison, and that’s around when my dsmp hyper fixation ended and i kinda tuned out. ik they were involved with l’sandberg but idk which side.

anyways their mansion was a million miles away so they survived the nuke CHBOMB WINS THE DSMP CHBOMB LIVES FOREVER CHBOMB SWEEP !!!!!

um since no vods left don’t trust everything i just said this is all from memory

[mcytrecursive]

Nomination Overview - Slow Burn

Sometimes you want to sit down and really enjoy your journey through a story. You want a slow burn. And boy, do we have some fics for you in that category. 10 nominations so far have the "slow burn" tag.

Title: greener grasses Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31163336/chapters/79676620 Fandom: Dream SMP Author: Apocynaceae Relationships: Quackity/Schlatt, Quackity&Karl, Quackity/Eret Characters: Quackity, Schlatt, Karl Jacobs, BadBoyHalo, Awesamdude, Ponk, Tommyinnit Length of the work: 569,475 words (incomplete fic) Genre: AU, Crossover, Drama, Horror, Modern AU, Post-Apocalyptic AU, Slow Burn, Time Travel, College AU Type: Fic Summary: Twenty-two years after the Survival Multiplayer event, Quackity has dreams of attending a law program in a walled city out West. Desperate to pay for expenses during his next semester at ManbergU, he accepts a TA position with his former professor. It's Quackity's last chance to get out of Manberg. It's his worst mistake. Features ghosts, time travel, possession, alternate universes, nonconsensual drug use, academic misconduct like you would not believe, an apocalypse, and midterm drama. 

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Title: Last of Us + Tntduo Link: here Fandom: Dream SMP Author: ashthefrogprin Relationships: Quackity/Wilbur Characters: Quackity, Wilbur Length of the work: not applicable Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, AU, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Apocalyptic AU, Romance, Slow Burn Type: Art Summary: A series of images depicting quackbur in a The Last of Us AU, followed by a brief summary of a few scenes the artist was imagining. Wilbur has a shotgun; Quackity has an axe. They're both traveling across the country together trying to find a safe harbor with other survivors-- and, as it turns out, being in close quarters with someone during life-threatening situations means the two of you tend to bond. Odd thing, that.

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Title: (this is) hungry work Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33034354/chapters/81996970 Fandom: Dream SMP Author: bluenote Relationships: Quackity/Schlatt, Connor&Schlatt, Karl/Sapnap Characters: Quackity, Schlatt, Niki, Connor, Karl, Sapnap, Tubbo, Tommy, Jambo (the cat) Length of the work: 36,965 words Genre: AU, Canon-Divergent, Character Study, Domestic/Slice-of-life, Fix-It, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Slow Burn, Smut Type: Fic Summary: After surviving his heart attack and being forced to get sober, Schlatt gains some empathy. He also gains some weight. Those two things seem to be inextricably linked. __

Title: if - then - else Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45779260/chapters/115204942 Fandom: 3rd Life SMP Author: anonymous Relationships: Etho & Tango, Bdubs & Tango, Bdubs & Etho & Tango, Jimmy Solidarity & Martyn Littlewood, Jimmy Solidarity & Tango, Martyn Littlewood & Scott Smajor, Martyn Littlewood & Tango, GeminiTay & Pearl, Jimmy Solidarity/Scott Major, Bdubs/Etho Characters: TangoTek, Bdubs, Etho, Martyn Littlewood, Jimmy Solidarity, Scott Smajor, GeminiTay, Mumbo Length of the work: 69,103 words (unfinished fic) Genre: Action/Adventure, AU, Romance, Slow Burn, Space AU, Sci-Fi AU Type: Fic Summary: Tango wakes up in a hospital with no memories and a moderately concerned pair of crewmates. Along with a few of the others in the same ward as him, he attempts to recover his memories, navigate a few significant obstacles, and figure out just how he got here. OR a space opera au that started as something very self indulgent and slowly developed a plot bigger than the walls of the hospital it began in. now with space chases and strange new planets!

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Title: the wedding before everything went wrong Link: here Fandom: Hermitcraft SMP Author: terracottakore Relationships: etho/cleo  Characters: cleo, etho  Length of the work: not applicable Genre: Angst, Drama, Family, Humour, Slow Burn Type: Art Summary: etho and cleo wedding  __

Title: Beta Testing Rating: E-rated Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27662032/chapters/67689973 Fandom: Hermitcraft SMP Author: Shadowfire_RavenPheonix Relationships: Grian/Iskall85, Grian/GoodtimesWithScar, Grian/BdoubleO, GoodtimesWIthScar/BdoubleO, Grian/Xisuma, Grian/Keralis Characters: Grian, Iskall85, GoodtimesWithScar, BdoubleO, Xisuma, Docm77, Tango, ImpulseSV, Etho, VintageBeef, Keralis Length of the work: 100,214 words (incomplete fic) Genre: Angst, AU, Character Study, Domestic/Slice-of-life, Drama, Friendship, Humour, Hurt/Comfort, Omegaverse, Slow Burn, Smut Type: Fic Summary: Grian was nervous when he was invited to join the HermitCraft server, because unbeknownst to anyone, the popular family friendly entertainment server is also an ACTIVE A/B/O server behind the scenes. After, having spent so much time with them and making so many amazing friends while on the UA (or Unavailable) list during season six, he's decided to make it more official and join the Active Available List for season seven. For Grian, however, the switch is going to be life changing. A journey of sexual self discovery and experimentation. Not Your Typical A/B/O

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Title: Knock The Ice From My Bones Rating: E-rated Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35887708 Fandom: Hermitcraft SMP Author: foryou-theworld, thesoftestofbois Relationships: Technoblade/Phil Watson, Dream/Wilbur Soot, Technoblade/Phil Watson/Wilbur Soot/Dream  Characters: Technoblade, Philza, Wilbur Soot, Dream Length of the work: 214,000 words (incomplete fic) Genre: AU, Fantasy AU, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Royalty AU, Slow Burn, Smut Type: Fic Summary: Hybrids Wilbur and Dream have spent years under King Schlatt's rule, serving as bedwarmers and confidants and spies at their king's demand. When Schlatt's latest grab for power fails, though, they're traded away as spoils of war to the victors, the hybrid kings of the Antarctic Empire. Kings Philza and Technoblade rule the south with a confidence that makes it easy to forget that hybrids are treated as lesser in other parts of the world. Wilbur and Dream's arrival is just another instance of people finding their freedom on the ice. Wilbur and Dream are determined to find information valuable enough to earn their freedom. Phil and Techno are focused on putting their kingdom back together, although they're a little distracted by their intriguing new arrivals.

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Title: One Long Season of Waiting Rating: E-rated Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/42741399/chapters/107375079 Fandom: Dream SMP Author: Anonymous Relationships: Quackity/Schlatt, Quackity/Wilbur, Quackity/Eret, Quackity/Techno, Quackity/Philza, Quackity/Foolish, Quackity/Wilbur/Eret/Techno/Foolish/Philza Characters: Quackity, Schlatt, Wilbur, Techno, Eret, Philza, Foolish Length of the work: 490,718 words Genre: AU, Domestic/Slice-of-life, Drama, Fantasy AU, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, Omegaverse, Romance, Royalty AU, Slow Burn, Smut Type: Fic Summary: Polyamory was a relatively new development in the world of nobility, but when the emperor was looking to add another consort to his flock, it was Quackity’s job to ensure that Schlatt was the one chosen for the position. As the duke of one of the four major duchies of the Antarctic Empire, Schlatt was a political powerhouse for sure, and Quackity couldn’t be more proud of his protector. All they had to do was get through the consort trials and then Schlatt would be in, and Quackity could continue to support his partner from the shadows, where he could be safe and protected. Of course, there is a chance the plan devolved almost immediately upon execution, and Quackity found himself getting far more contact with the royal flock and the other consort candidates than he ever could have expected. THE SHORT OF IT: A Fantasy/Royalty AU that features unconventional A/B/O dynamics, political worldbuilding, a heavy emphasis on trauma recovery and found family dynamics, and soap-opera levels of non-communication. And also, there’s romance. See forenotes for more details.

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Title: Sword and Smoke Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52674127/chapters/133363822 Fandom: 3rd Life SMP Author: apollothetransboy Relationships: Martyn Littlewood/Rendog, Martyn Littlewood & Jimmy (SolidarityGaming), Jimmy (SolidarityGaming)/Cleo (ZombieCleo)  Characters: Martyn Littlewood, Rendog, Jimmy (SolidarityGaming)  Length of the work: currently 50k (incomplete fic) Genre: Angst, AU, Canon-Divergent, Character Study, Hurt/Comfort, Hurt-no-comfort, Romance, Slow Burn Type: Fic Summary: Ren let out a sympathetic noise and reached out a hand, only to find that he was too far from Martyn to touch him. Limited Life, which was won by Impulse, has drawn to a close, and with the dawn of the next seasons approaching, Ren is at the forefront of Martyn's mind. Somehow, in his absence, Martyn has convinced himself that Ren couldn't possibly love him anymore. Maybe, even, that he had chosen to forget him and all the pain he brings. And when Ren does return for Way Life, and the consecutive three seasons, Martyn scrambles for the smallest of crumbs to prove his truth. With the odds stacked against them, though, Martyn finds himself always drawn back to him, whether by mechanics of the game or by what seems impossible chance. Time and time again he proves himself willing to go very far to believe his own lies, especially when the truth is something far more painful, though he will have to know it eventually—that he was, and will always be something that Ren would do anything, anything, to protect. or—four lives in which martyn and ren fall apart and fall back together

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Title: Amoransia Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52729348 Fandom: Crossover Fandom Author: Phospheos Relationships: Gem/Pearl, Gem&Pearl, Grian/Scar, Joel/Lizzie, Mumbo/Grian, Mumbo/Grian/Scar Characters: Pearl, Gem, Tilly the Dog, Grian, Mumbo, Impulse, Scar, fWhip, Lizzie, Joel, Evil Xisuma, Cleo Length: 9,990 words (incomplete fic) Genre: Action/Adventure, AU, Hurt/Comfort, Modern AU, Slow Burn, Superhero/Superpower AU Type: Fic Summary: amoransia; n. the melodramatic thrill of unrequited love; the longing to pine for someone you can never have, wallowing in devotion to some impossible person who could give your life meaning by their very absence. Glimpse into the lives of two that hold an eternal bond through both company and absence, two that hold a safety to the other that it never needs to be said in the first place. There lies a love that time and time again will shine through as long as the universe allows them to hold it, as they get torn apart and reunited time and time again. It is messy and out-of-order, but that's them, and that means they're together. And wouldn't have it any other way.

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[vanitastalk]

[NEW CHAPTER]

Chapter 9/?: Likeness

Fandom: Dream SMP

Rating: Mature

Categories: Gen, Multi

Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Words: 51,610

Summary:

In reality, you learn that there is neither rhyme nor reason to this. No such thing as fairness or karma. In the end, it's all just dumb luck.

Faced with that fact, there is one of two things you do: lament the injustice of it all and eventually succumber to it once your own luck runs out, or shrug it off and keep going in spite of it.

That said, these are the stories of the kind of people that survive, dumb luck or otherwise.

Relationships:

Ponk | DropsByPonk/Sam | Awesamdude, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Callahan & Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), GeorgeNotFound & Karl Jacobs, Niki | Nihachu & Ponk | DropsByPonk

Characters:

GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Karl Jacobs, Ponk | DropsByPonk (Video Blogging RPF), Alexis | Quackity, Jschlatt (Video Blogging RPF), Sam | Awesamdude, Niki | Nihachu, Callahan (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot, Fundy (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream's Sister Drista (Video Blogging RPF)

Additional Tags:

Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Inspired by The Last of Us (Video Games), Blood and Gore, Angst and Feels, Whump, Unhealthy Relationships, Injury, Worldbuilding, No Smut