#What a bunch of lore

[pokemonfrommemory]

Bad and naughty children who wander in the woods get reincarnated into trees

[valeriapryanikova]

This season, on Hermitcraft...

(speedpaint)

[tpwrtrmnky]

what's the ptmyg lore?

Well, some shades of green are subject to more discrimination than others, in a sufficiently complex way that it's difficult to clearly rank as different shades are discriminated against in different ways.

France doesn't exist, Strasbourg is located in Lithuania which is part of the Yrnopean Confederacy, which is owned by five conglomerates of which Lockheed-Nestlé and ExxonStarbucks are the known ones. Lockheed-Nestlé is operating a portal to hell in Strasbourg and their CEO Immortal Jeff does not give a single fuck about any of this.

Everyone is aroace and agender, people reproduce by mitosis. People still have partners and sometimes have bex, which has a cultural situation roughly equivalent to sex and can transmit diseases, but not if you wear boxing gloves. There is an infinite torment crucible in Colorado, one of the states of the Advanced Australian Federation. The AAF is culturally less fascist than the Yrnopean Confederacy, but not that much.

There is something called "unwanted purple syndrome," which you can treat with green pills. Lockheed-Nestlé puts meth in its instant coffee. The only known character with an appearance more complex than a stick figure and a name that isn't just a colour is Immortal Jeff.

The main character is in a polycule with a lime green stick figure and a moss green stick figure. I have not specified where they live but I have implied that they occasionally commit radical acts of direct action together. They turned a guy into a couch once.

I'll throw a world map into a comic at some point.

[stardynamite]

While rewatching ducktales, I realised that they looove foreshadowing, they do it all the time, sometimes they even give the whole plot of an episode in the very first scenes without the viewer noticing lol.

Anyway, I realised that they foreshadowed the whole “duke of making a mess” thing that Huey had in the sword of swanstantine episode!

THE THING IS, EVEN on my first watch, I could tell that this was supposed to be a multiple episode arc but they HAD to make it shorter because ducktales was getting cancelled and I’m PISSED. LIKE ALL OF MY FAVOURITE CARTOONS, THIS COULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH MORE.

DEWEY had his own arc where he’s trying to uncover his mom’s dissaperance with Webby. LOUIE had his own arc where he was struggling with his place in the family and HUEY. DIDN’T.

Ughhh they foreshadowed the Duke of making a mess in the intern episode and even in Scrooge’s birthday!!

Those are BOTH season 1 episodes (I’m not gonna list more foreshadowing because you get my point) SO THEY’VE BEEN BUILDING UP THIS ARC SINCE THE BEGINNING AND THEY DIDNT GET TO CASH IT INNNNN RAHHHHHH 🗣️‼️‼️‼️‼️

When watching the ONE episode where he appears, you could IMMEDIATELY tell that it should’ve been a bigger deal. I mean come onnnn, they enter Huey’s mind scape and there’s a huge closed up door??? With locks??? DUUUDE THAT WOULD’VE BEEN AWESOMMMMEEE

I’m saying all of this but this is just to vent some frustration about how animation shows will just be cancelled without the chance to say all that they’ve wanted to say… and as the one who wants to hear it: *cries and wails and pees on the floor*

Ducktales was planning so many more seasons and only got 3, like every other great animation show nowadays i fear

[upsidedownsmore]

Tennotober 2024 Day 4: Alchemy

Archimedian Javi, the Transmuter

Previous (Day 3: Fragments) || Next (Day 5: Aura)

In the timelapse you can see me use the perspective tool at the very very last second lmao

[chocodile]

Small character detail I have no good excuse to mention: Hyden hates anything remotely similar to "fast food". This applies to all AUs. He finds greasy, cheap, oversalted/overly sugary food disgusting. Additionally, he hates--HATES--messy food. The only foods he will eat with his hands are ones that are very clean and dry and leave no residue. Getting some sort of sauce or grease on his hands is one of the worst sensations in the world (doubly so when he's a bunny… to be fair, can you imagine eating barbecue while wearing fur mittens? Ew!)

When he was younger, he was slightly more flexible on these limitations. Here he is eating a "ham burger" normally to show how normal he is. He is fitting in with the common man. He is pulling it off. He's got this. Look how relaxed he is. You could almost miss the Rolex on his wrist.

Of course, every rule has its exceptions. As has been mentioned before Hyden often has no idea where food comes from or what goes into it. At some point, somebody failed to mention to him that Cinnabons come from kiosks at the mall and cost less than $100 each. Therefore, they escaped his "fast food is disgusting and I hate it" filter, and, in a modern AU, became one of his favorite desserts. He has a pastry or two each morning with his coffee and then wonders why he never seems to lose any weight.

[demeterdefence]

every time someone mentions the art quality in lore olympus i immediately default to the juxtaposition between these two panels

colour! nuance! depth! detail!!! both men have clear design choices and their rage is depicted both in their eye colouring and body languages! overlay texture is present but hasn’t yet reached “holy god turn up the transparency for the love of god” levels yet

literally looks like fanart made by someone who actively despises the series. ZERO depth, loss of details, that overlay is literally beating my ass in my own home it’s so overpowering.

art styles change and evolve and an artist will develop new styles and techniques as they grow, but lore olympus was literally a total degradation of skills viewed live. it was like rachel figured out how to kind of draw one guy and by god we were going to know it. the details that marked early lore episodes - gorgeous colour choices, composition, shading, soft details - ended up getting completely tossed aside in favour of the same two png cutouts pasted in various tiktok outfits over and over. it’s calarts if they had gotten a multi million dollar webtoon deal

[moony-2001]

With the announcement of two new original stories by Rachel herself, I’ve been oscillating between “let her try cooking again” and “we’ve already seen what she did to the Greek pantheon she should be relegated to lunchables”

[otiksimr]

Inktober day 17

[Lone sentinel]

[x-enocyon]

new ldb in the works

[haeidys]

Stardew mod too good I'm reviving my old OCs from 2018 to ship them with Ridgeside NPCs

At this point, I might just marry up most of these characters

[genericpuff]

LO stan brain rot is vehemently defending a comic that you're swiping through so fast that you miss and forget crucial plot points, like thinking Demophoon was the reason for Demeter being a helicopter parent despite him being born during the 10 year time skip while Demeter was mortal.

LO anti/critic/hater brain rot is being able to look at an out-of-context panel of a character with same face syndrome turned greyscale and name exactly which character, scene, and episode it's from.

We are not the same.

[destinysbounty]

pls explain the stupid powers thing where they came from lloyd but suddenly now theyre genetic out of nowhere bc the former is the stupider of the 2.

Oh my god Raine I am so sorry this has been sitting in my inbox for like 50 years, I completely forgot about this ask. If it's any consolation, I made diagrams!

So the bottom line is, the elemental powers ARE heritable. And although the Lloyd thing makes things complicated, it doesn't change that.

First, let's talk about Golden Power. As I understand it, Golden Power is a godlike power first wielded by the FSM and used to create Ninjago. Again, correct me if I'm mistaken, but my understanding of it is that it's essentially an amalgamation of the four Elements of Creation.

Despite being extensions of Golden Power, these four elements still operate much like normal elements - that is, under normal conditions.

See, Golden Power is also hereditary. It was passed down from the FSM into his grandson Lloyd. Kind of. Lloyd inherited an essence of his grandfather's power.

(Yes, yes, I know Energy technically classifies as an elemental essence rather than an elemental power. But even then this still tracks.)

The way I see it, Energy acts more as a foundation. A connection. Think movie rules, where "green" is the thing holding everything together. Energy is the foundation upon which the others ebb and flow, it is the thing that connects their elements together. The glue that connects the Elements of Creation and forms Golden Power.

Here's another way to think about it. Let's assume that this whole elemental network of Golden Power operates a bit like a circuit (more or less). Each of the four Elements of Creation act as a battery and Golden Power is the lightbulb, with Green Energy being the wires and circuitry connecting everything together. Like so:

When the whole circuit is complete and properly functioning, power is being diverted from the sources of power - the four elements - and transferred through the circuitry into the lightbulb. Under these conditions, the four elements would be considerably diminished on account of having their power diverted into something else, while the lightbulb would be brightly lit.

In some cases like in season 1 and most of season 2, this simply manifests as a diminished access to their own elemental power that must be supplemented with the use of their Golden Weapons (which in themselves are artifacts of Golden Power that have been attuned to particular elements). They still have some access to their power, and even more so after unlocking their True Potentials, but that access was inhibited on account of much of their power being routed into this Golden Power/Energy circuit system.

(Note that this isn't a perfect analogy - unlike batteries, elemental power is not a limited resource but is instead constantly regenerating. I think of it a bit like blood - finite in the moment, but so long as we are healthy we can consistently produce more every day. Hence why Nya was able to regain her powers without instantly being connected to the sea: in the context of this analogy, you might think of her power being drained as bloodletting. The new power she developed was new and untainted by her former connection to the sea. I know all these analogies are starting to get confusing though, so feel free to disregard this.)

Now in past generations, the Green Ninja hadn't been born yet. So the actual circuitry itself wasn't present, meaning there was nothing to connect these elements together. Nothing to spend from their elemental reserves. So while Golden Power cannot form under these conditions, the previous EMs could use the full extent of their power without issue.

But then Lloyd was born, and the ethereal threads of power tying their elements together finally entered the system - thereby diverting those four powers into a greater collective of Golden Power. Even if Lloyd hadn't unlocked his True Potential, the system itself had taken shape, waiting for him to be ready to use it.

Then in the latter half season 2, the og4 completely divested what little they had of their powers at the time. And due to the increased energy demands of Lloyd's awakened USM form/abilities, any scrap of power they may have generated thereafter would immediately be converted into Golden Power instead.

Then in season 3, they returned to the Temple of Light to reverse this transference. and this is, unfortunately, where the circuit metaphor starts to fall apart. But for the sake of argument, just let me have this.

When Lloyd did returned his friends' powers to them, he also completely dissolved his Golden Power in the process, restoring them to their pre-GP conditions but in fact to what their power levels would have been in a non-GP environment. That is, they were finally able to access the full extent of their elemental abilities because the lightbulb wasn't there to transfer their energy away. Similar to what the system looked like back before Lloyd was born. This is why they were able to actually wield their elemental powers without the use of the Golden Weapons, when in the past that had only been possible through their True Potential.

(Yes, I know this isn't really how circuits work. I took an electrical engineering class in high school, and you have no idea how much the inaccuracies pain me. I mean I did warn you the analogy would fall apart. But I've put too much work into these diagrams to turn back now.)

Now, as for why their powers didn't work in season 5...that's a whole other headache. My best guess is that Morro attempted to reset the system to its prior GP state, but since he didn't do it properly through the Temple of Light everything just kinda got a little fucky for everyone instead.

The TLDR is that the og4's elemental powers don't come from Lloyd, per se, but he does sort of act as a conduit (ha) for their powers. And his capacity as that conduit can at times inhibit or enhance their own indvidual elemental potentiality.

...does this make sense, like at all? I feel like I just did a bunch of incomprehensible rambling that no one else would be able to understand. Listen, Ninjago's magic system is agonizingly convoluted enough as it is. I'm just doing my best 😭😭😭

[thegreatyin]

And thus, with the passing of 24 hours, Caeru's ambition truly comes to an end. Major Nemesis spoilers below the cut- we're talking endgame ambition business here. Mostly on a character RP front.

The Doomed Scientist made quite a few... choice decisions, in the end. Killing Cups once and for all, recording his story as one of grief-

And sparing what little remained of Mr Mirrors, leaving it free to roam Parabola as it sees fit.

Some of them, he can explain. Others, he's still left to feel... discontent.

Cups needed to die. That much was certain from the start. It was a tyrant, as all Masters are, and complicit in the bargaining and eventual destruction of four (potentially five) cities, as all Masters are. It was an obstacle. A murderer. A petty monster that felt no remorse even on its deathbed, and it went out of its way to ruin multiple lives just because it felt owed its own sick and twisted idea of revenge.

It killed his first love. It looked him in the eyes and he knew what it had done and he knew from the start it was going to die.

Perhaps, in the end, it knew too. And yet it still pleaded, and wanted to live, and-

It made a bargain.

A bargain Caeru didn't take.

Not because he didn't want to. Gods, he wanted to. He wanted it. He wanted it more than anything else in the world. To have Greylu back, to give him the gift of life, of love, to show him the wonders of the Neath and the beauty of the correspondence and all of the people Caeru has met and loved and found home with along the way-

But. He couldn't.

Because Cups was a monster. And no matter what, it deserved to die. And he could not, in good conscience, allow it to live.

Even if sparing it meant everything he's ever wanted.

So he's left here, now. With a bloodied traveling coat, and a bloodsoaked knife, and a favor finally fulfilled.

And nothing to live for. No resurrected lover, no charming visits to Helicon, no slow dances in the living room, no memories to rebuild and lives to live and he won't live again-

Nothing. All he has is a coat born of obligation, not to his love, but to people he's never even met. To lives he's never even touched. To a paramour, still alive, with hair of rose-pink, who doesn't even remember her own brother's existence.

Cups didn't die for Caeru's sake. Cups died for the sake of all who wanted it dead. For the revenger's court, and the ghost screaming in his ear, and the reckoning that will not be postponed indefinitely.

And Caeru, who acted as a tool to carry out their wills? Who all but betrayed his own lover, just to satisfy a cause he never knew existed?

All Caeru is left with, is regret. Regret-

-And grief.

[tomfrogisblue]

If you ignore them talking about whether they'd eat each others eggs if humans laid them, BOLAS was always a fucking terrifying team.

The whole team is just abandoned experiments, battle strategists and people hanging onto sanity by a small fucking thread.

The team is full of ex convicts, ex war criminals, and plenty of people with a perchant for using massive explosions to make a point.

Even those without good pvp or general minecraft knowledge make up for it easily with sheer bloody-minded persistence and willingness to die for those they are loyal to.

And in the team are some of the most cunning on the island; infiltrators, detectives, murderers, generals, presidents, secret society leaders, conspirators, anarchists

Add onto that the rage of grieving parents...

The other teams should always have been afraid of Team Bolas Rojas.

[leapdayowo]

Redstone and Skulk OC time :3

Thought I’d turn my persona into a rns oc and give them a helsmet :3 I basically looked at my play style in Minecraft and took a few things from my own life and combined them to create these two! Short version about them below and a little story of their origins under that:

short version:

-Leapday_art (short version Leapday, she/he/they, the player) is afraid of losing important things in their life. He is very cautious about doing anything that could result in him dying and loosing everything in his inventory (sleeps through the night everytime to avoid monsters, barely visits the nether, strip mines, etc) +the cats next to Leapday are two of my darling kitties who unfortunately passed away irl, their names are Toby (left) and Toes (right)

-Nightfall_collections (short version Nightfall, all pronouns, the helsmet) was created from Leapday’s extreme fear of losing valuables and her grief from having lost valuables too many times. Xyr driving goal is to collect and preserve everything that xe can and to make sure there is always at least one copy

-other things about Nightfall: she is a magma cube hybrid while Leapday is a ??? hybrid player (if you read the story below this may make more sense👀). Nightfall can split into smaller duplicates which allows them to be in more places at once and thus more productive in their goal. She uses her goop-like body to write reminders on her clothes, then re-absorbs the goop later

-I think Nightfall would find himself as an organizer between lots of different parties/people in Hels due to being so dedicated to his goal + only being dedicated to this goal (his alignment is probably chaotic good because he’s loyal to his own goals and not to other people or outside rules. He does not take bribes or backstab). Also, Nightfall does not need to have possession of everything, but xe is trying to keep tabs on where everything that exist is at(this makes xem the go-to person for trying to obtain something in particular)

-I think Nightfall would become a sponsor (if that’s the right word?) for the Order of Remembrance because she greatly admires the work they do to preserve Hels’ history. She would also love Zedaph’s hall of all and definitely tries to work with private collectors to protect (and document/track) what they have (and she will keep what she knows a secret if it means protecting valuable things)

-Nightfall does not care about thieves unless they steal one of a kind things

-the doodles below were my earlier concepts, so Nightfall has green eyes before I realized it’s much more fitting for xem to have orange eyes

okay, okay, story time (because I realized the ‘short’ version was getting very extensive):

Maybe it had started in the very first world she spawned in. A brilliant blue sky that stretched over jagged, looming cliffs with forests scattered underneath. Trickling waterfalls and bubbling lava pits here and there. The natural beauty of the world left Leapday in awe and eager to explore what other wonders lay beyond the horizon.

It must have started with the first tree she broke, a squat little oak, one of hundreds in the forest. When the leaves of that little oak had all fallen, saplings littered the grassy floor. She should’ve been excited, feel triumphant even by taking down the tree, after all it’s how the journey had to start. Except, all that Leapday could see was the awkward gap in the canopy from the absence of the little oak. It felt like an itch unscratched, nagging and uncomfortable. Well that wouldn’t do.

They scooped up all the saplings littering the floor and planted one in the same dirt plot the little oak was uprooted from. Then they planted a few more just for good measure. The unease lingered, but planting the saplings felt good. It felt right. Now their adventure could truly begin!

——

In this world, Leapday’s only companions were the pigs and sheep that he passed on his journey, though he would argue, if there were someone to argue with, that the world itself brought him company enough. That the days and nights passing was a conversation between the universe and Leapday, and thus a consistent companion. And what gifts did the universe provide for him to find! Rushing rivers that fed into powerful oceans, plenty of trees to sleep in and collect, and mountains to climb with the best views of the sunset. Never a dull moment for him as there was always something new to experience and see.

However, despite all its gifts, the universe was slow to explain the finer mechanics of the world, such as health to Leapday. A week of traversing through thick forests and steep cliffs left them battered and bruised. They learned how to gauge the distance of a drop and how to place blocks to minimize the pain in their ankles from falls. A similar pain gnawed from the inside of their stomach, which they discovered was briefly satiated by devouring the apples that fell from the trees.

During one climb up a particularly harrowing cliff, Leapday learned about the unforgiving weight of sand by placing it under her feet in order to reach the next ledge. The block had crumbled in a near instant, sending her plummeting towards the ground. Instead of hitting the hard rocks below, she splashed into a stream from a nearby waterfall. When she had dragged herself onto land and her heart had steadied to a more familiar pace, she let out a fit of bewildered laughter that overwhelmed the panic from moments ago. She knew falls much shorter than this one could take days to recover from, so what kind of pain would she be in if she hadn’t gotten lucky and fallen in the stream? Something cold ran through her and sank to the pit of her stomach. Dread of what could have been, what could still be if she wasn’t more careful. She resolved to never find out what would happen. How unfortunate that her next fall would be into a pit of lava, the very one she had been camping at throughout the nights.

He was being careful, more so than he had been for the first week in this world anyways. That didn’t seem to matter because he had still slipped when placing the block before him and fallen. It was his first respawn, and it introduced him to a few new things like a punch to the face. The first revelation was the agony of burning to death, and death itself. He curled into himself, crying at the phantom feeling of the lava eating at his flesh. The intense heat and how the lava had trapped him in place and burned. It was a twisted version of the warmth of the sun, which was shining down on him and in comparison felt as cool as the air in caves. The second realization came slowly as the memory of fire ebbed. Their knuckles no longer popped and their joints no longer ached. The tightness in their muscles had vanished, leaving softer tissue on the bone and the emptiness in their stomach no longer hurt. They felt new and full of energy, ready to begin their journey again. How strange they had forgotten what this felt like. White scars from their oldest injuries and freckles from sun touched skin still littered their body. They had died, but now were in perfect health again. Leapday took in her surroundings, her face lighting up with delight at the sight of a familiar oak tree. It had grown into quite the study tree since the start of her adventure. Soon after her reunion, Leapday discovered her now empty inventory when she reached for blocks to place in order to climb the canopy. The absence of stacks of logs, dirt, and sand had her racing towards the lava pit before her mind could catch up. Panic pushed her feet to run faster and dodge every obstacle. She ignored nicks from branches in her way and the sting of sharp rocks on her bare feet. The timer was ticking down. Her items would be gone- she just had to- if she wasn’t fast enough-

She burst through the tree line and was greeted by the familiar heavy heat of the lava pit. The sight of it made her recoil out of fear of falling back in even from many blocks away. On shaky legs, she circled the perimeter and searched for her items. The timer was still ticking, but they were nowhere to be seen! She crept as close as she dared to the lava and swept her eyes across the surface of the pool. Then she darted into the surrounding trees looking high and low.

Nothing.

No logs. No saplings or dirt or anything!

This was their third lesson. You lose items after death, and lava destroys those items.

Don’t die, especially not in lava, and don’t lose your items.

Now they had to start over, and this time not dying proved to be harder than expected. More falls and similar accidents happened. Zombies began appearing, persistent in their pursuit of Leapday’s flesh. Then skeletons, creepers, and spiders appeared and introduced many more ways one could die. The pain from the deaths hurt, but they became mundane as weeks turned to months. Loosing items became more painful and frightening when Leapday discovered crafting. More time and resources were needed to start over after dying with crafted items, so they took to the world underground. They followed their instinct to craft pickaxes and torches, to chip away at the stone in search of more sturdy materials. They crafted their first stone pickaxe and found it to be superior to the wooden one.

Maybe it truly started with that wooden pickaxe. When she crafted the stone tools, the wooden pickaxe sat in her hotbar, still good for half a day’s work but now obsolete. It had served her well to progress her journey, a necessary step, but it felt wrong to simply set it aside. It felt like the gap in the canopy all over again, but she very well couldn’t plant the pickaxe in the ground and solve her unease. Not sure what else to do, she attached it to her hip and went on with her day. She wouldn’t destroy it or toss it, she would simply carry it with her until she found what she needed to do with it next. It became her new companion (it was her first crafted tool. It was the first and therefore the only one that would ever exist).

Now equipped with wood and stone blocks, Leapday built their base over their mine. The wooden pickaxe found its place over the doorway leading outside, marking the build as their home. It felt right, so they continued their expansions. Farms were planted along a nearby river and fences placed to corral cows and sheep. Torches were the one item they were generous with. They were thrown across their property liberally since their light would deter creepers spawning too close for comfort.

During a thunderstorm that had picked up abruptly one morning, Leapday poked around at their communicator. It was a lightweight device that had been attached to their forearm since first spawning into the world and never disappeared after dying. After lots of fiddling with the different menus and buttons on the screen, they came across YouCraft. It was an archive of videos made by other players scattered across the universe, documenting their own worlds and progress! With the storm still crashing down around Leapday’s base, they curled up in bed and began watching the first video that caught their eye. It turned out that he had lots more to learn about the universe! After waiting out the storm, and then the night, by watching these videos, he learned about other biomes and blocks still left to discover as well as potions, enchanting, and other dimensions! A dragon was where this journey led for most players, though some took their time getting to it. Above all, he realized he needed diamonds. Diamonds were what every player sought due to their strength, but they were rare and dangerous to collect being so deep underground. They were needed to further Leapday’s journey however, so collecting them became his top goal. Quickly he learned how impossible achieving this goal would be. Well, it seemed impossible after spending days underground chipping at the cold stone and coming up empty. Strange echoes rang through the tunnels and more than a few times paranoia of something (or someone. He had heard the legends of Herobrine) sneaking up on him was enough to make him hole up for hours. Grey, grey stone that went on for miles. Grey cobblestone trailed behind him when his inventory filled. Leapday found other minerals, but the sparkling teal of diamonds still lay buried elsewhere. He mined for so long he began to doubt that the rare mineral even generated in this world. That only grey existed. That was until he broke away the next layer of stone before him and found himself staring uncomprehending at the bits of teal poking through stone. Uncontainable joy broke through his shock like sunlight through parting storm clouds. They were real! Diamonds were real and right in front of him! Invigorated with new energy, Leapday got to work extracting the diamonds just as they had seen others do. The amount paled in comparison to the stacks other players had, but in that moment he didn’t care. It was enough to have found them and confirm they even existed in this world. That weeks of sore arms digging at indifferent stone and unsteady gravel caches falling finally amounted to their new prized possession.

By the time he arrived back at his base, the novelty of finding diamonds began to wear off. He had to admit it was a measly amount. Just barely enough for a diamond pickaxe. What good would a stronger pickaxe be with no enchantments or replacements for when it broke? It had taken so long to find just a few diamonds what were the chances of finding more? No, they wouldn’t craft anything with the rare mineral until they had enough for spares and back ups. So back to the mines they went, and excruciatingly slow they found more, and continued to reason that crafting them was a poor decision. What if an accident happened and they couldn’t get back to their stuff? If they were swallowed by a pit of lava? So much time would be spent only to be wasted. Almost like their thoughts and fears had manifested it, a freak lava incident happened not long after. Leapday had been feeling good that day, so good because their most recent mining trip had yielded 13 diamonds and another cluster just across a lava lake. As they bridged across the lake, plans of finally crafting their collection of diamonds began to form making them giddy. It was the type of giddy that made any obstacle feel like child’s play and beyond consequence. That they finally could start progressing on their journey once more. It was enough to distract Leapday from the crunch of gravel under their feet and for their pickaxe to swing off its mark into the unsteady floor. The ground gave way and sent her tumbling into the lava.

She woke up screaming in her bed. Screaming from agony of ghostly flames that ate flesh, and then from loss and frustration. It wasn’t fair! Her luck had just turned up for the best and now all of it was gone! Every plan to use the diamonds tossed out the window and into a burning pit of despair. How stupid of her to not notice the gravel! All that time for nothing! She should have called it a day and come up 13 diamonds richer with plenty of levels for enchanting. All her gear and tools and items from mineshafts would still be intact, but no. Her head was too far in the clouds and now it was gone. She hadn’t even had the foresight to mark the cave to return to, so sure of her victory. There would be no hope navigating the twisting and sprawling tunnels below, and even if she tried to go back, the sight of lava would probably be enough to make her hurl. Fat tears began dripping down her face as she cursed and wallowed. They blurred his vision, so with a few steadying breaths and a final gross sniffle, he wiped at his eyes. Then he went to swing his legs over the bed to pick up the pieces of his day and froze. On his hand, both hands actually, were thick black smudges of… of something. What was that? He reached up to his face and traced the wet tear tracks with a clean finger. It too came away covered in the strange goop. An incredulous laugh burst from him, which evolved into hysterical crying. More tears fell from his eyes and he let them. The tangled web of grief in his chest unraveling as he did so, and he felt the last of his energy drain away until-

Sunlight trickled through the curtains and roused Leapday from their sleep. Birds were chirping and the familiar sounds of the animals grazing and leaves rustling cradled their mind while the events of the previous day trickled back to them. They felt heavy and gross. Their eyes crusty and mouth dry as a desert were a sure sign of their emotional distress. Disappointment felt like stones being dropped on them when they pulled up their empty inventory. It really was all gone. They let their head flop back onto their pillow and took a steadying breath, trying to recount the reasons they should get out of bed. Maybe they would stick to the joys of the world above ground for a month or two. Take up weaving or painting. They had plenty of resources to finally build a barn and an expansion to the house. Maybe they would go with a grassy roof.

Yeah. That could be alright. With one final sigh, Leapday pushed themself up off their bed and dragged themself over to their cauldron to clean up. They could see from their reflection that only a few faint smudges remained on their face, which they gently wiped away. Crying black goop was probably not normal now that their mind was more stable to think it over. Or maybe it was normal? It had never happened before, but the players on YouCraft all had their own quirks that Lepaday lacked, so maybe it was normal for them?

It turned out the inky tears were a new normal. From that incident onward, whenever they experienced a great sense of loss the strange tears formed and sank into the ground. They appeared when Leapday lost their first wolf companion and when they accidentally deleted a creative world full of builds of an ambitious project.

Meanwhile…

in another world…

In Hels, black goop bubbled to the surface of a sea of lava. From a distance, the surface seemed its usual hungry self, shifting and popping as it patiently waited for Hels and its inhabitants to finally crumble in. The goop was not consumed by its hunger however. It stretched towards the netherrack shore like a snake in water. Once it had gathered all of itself onto more solid ground, it sat and waited for more of itself to arrive, bouncing and bubbling over the terrain in the meantime. They could only wait so long however, after all, there was much to collect and preserve and too little time to do so.

And it’s finished! Whew, I don’t typically write, so this was a lot to work on amidst all my finals projects (totally worth it tho! It was great practice). I wasn’t planning on writing so much about leapday, but then I realized the interesting potential of writing about players when they’re new to the world. If they are akin to gods, they still enter the world with a lot to learn. The goop at the end is Nightfall, who then went on to travel Hels and collect as many blocks and items as xe could before xe came across the city Evil X established. At first they were incredibly overwhelmed by the amount of stuff to preserve in the city and mostly stuck to collecting free scraps and garbage. It probably did something to gain the attention of a member of the Order of Remembrance, who taught Nightfall about their goals and a few things about how society/Hels worked. From there, Nightfall set off to establish a massive collection and documentation of anything and everything, working with people in the process but also quite an eccentric personality that can be quite a hermit when buried in paperwork (not many people are willing to do paperwork as diligently as Nightfall)

Also, YouCraft is YouTube in the Minecraft world :P I felt I needed to separate it from our version of mcyt because in this universe the characters are real and making videos about their lives rather than people playing a video game (at least that’s how I’m headcanoning it)

thank you @silverskye13 for providing some more lore about Hels and the Order of Remembrance (as well as Redstone and Skulk as a whole <3) as well as inspiring me to keep trying to improve my writing and thank you to @/yayforocs for inspiring me to finally make my own rns OCs and this post :3