#anyway always love the etho lore

[devilart2199-aibi]

Mountain Man Beard 🪓🧔

[dredgesnails]

i very badly want a double life 2: electric boogaloo but crucially no one is allowed to be paired up with their soulmate from the first one (except ranchers) and also lizzie and gem and mumbo and skizz are there too. anyway here are some pairings i think would be funny or interesting or would please me personally:

mumbo + scar: complete the mumscarian circuit

mumbo + lizzie: statistically the worst players right after jimmy. lizzie died before him once and she can do it again (and take mumbo with her)

grian + jimmy: nightmare scenario for the both of them

pearl + gem: an unfair matchup as they would win no problem but i love them together and i think we deserve them together after the events of secret life

scar + tango: wildly unpredictable. scar takes damage constantly but (almost) always escapes by the skin of his teeth. tango on the other hand has blown himself up before

pair them up best + worst in order (pearl + jimmy, gem + mumbo, scott + lizzie etc) and see if they manage to balance each other out. this takes out some of the randomness but there are still some fun duos i think would come out of it (etho + bdubs, skizz + martyn, impulse + bigb) and i also think pearl could keep jimmy alive long enough to not die first

and for lore reasons:

grian + bigb: lets see how the secret soulmates can handle being real soulmates

scott + jimmy: ok i know the last time they were together jimmy doomed them both with his curse but this time it’ll be different scott’s lucky now

cleo + etho: the progression of divorced with kids > roomies > soulmates tickles me

ren + martyn: i miss renchanting

+ bonus because i have been thinking about who i would want joining the life series a lot. this is who i want to join

doc + anyone really but mostly grian: okay seriously i imagined doc in the life series once and now ive been consumed by the desire to see it. especially with his health linked to grian. think about it. would be fun with ren also for entirely opposite reasons

[ganonfan1995]

More DSAU rambling, extended talking about the Zonai and Hylaru:

As much as I love the idea that the Zonai are off-world beings who came to Hyrule and brought the secret stones with them, etc... that feels a bit like propaganda to me. I think, for DSAU, that’s the case entirely. They're terrestrial—subterranean, in origin.

Their discovery of Zonaite wasn’t by mistake, it was one of their naturally occurring resources, which took them a long time to figure out exactly how to use. Similar to how iron was utilized prior to the discovery of smelted iron, which led to the Iron Age.

LoZ has always been about hubris in a way, it always takes place in the ruins of civilization, and the Zonai are no exception to this.

Something I wish ToTK played with more is the overall development and lore surrounding the Zonai, though I know that would defeat the purpose of their namesake. But by giving them any development at all in ToTK already ruined the mystery of their existence.

I think Zonaite was the perfect resource for them to settle to the surface. The increase of artifacts, tools, weapons, lead to an economic boom, which lead to the eventual settlements on the surface which would later become cities. But I also don't think they had the exact resources to grow larger than they had, I really want to emphasize that at this time they relied on a single forge, and smaller mines scattered among the depths.

Monsters, much like the Zonai, naturally inhabit the depths, making mining and forging all the more dangerous. At this time, I don’t think the Zonai fully understood how powerful their newfound energy source was. The refining process was rudimentary, constructs had not been invented yet, and battery power was far from discovery.

I think greed is another core LoZ theme that ties into the “hubris” leading to the decline of any LoZ kingdom. Even the Royal Family, despite its unwavering “goodness,” falls victim to greed in multiple instalments. It’s the poison that hardens the heart, incompatible with the “pure of heart” ethos that the stories hinge upon.

Greed is at the forefront of the Zonai’s first downfall: small wars over mining and Zonaite production escalated into larger civil wars, which broke apart alliances and plunged their once-great cities into chaos and disrepair. While the Zonai did not entirely disappear, their civilization entered a dark age for some time. Zonaite eventually became a relic of the past, and the remaining artifacts became precious heirlooms.

Hylaru is a character I'm still fleshing out, but she is essentially Hylia.

I really, really love the original Hylia concepts from Skyward Sword. I think I latched onto her as a concept more than I anticipated. But much like how I feel about the Zonai lore tidbit in Tears of the Kingdom, the Hylia lore feels a lot like propaganda. She's built up to be this infallible goddess, with nothing but goodness in her heart. Yet, throughout the game, you get a very different sense of her. Between the ruins of Lanayru, once home to a vibrant ocean now reduced to a desert, the land mined dry—literally—to her use of both the hero and her own priestess in a story they had no choice but to play a part in. She's a goddess of time, a manipulator, she's the hands that move the puppets in accordance with her master plan.

Anyways, even in Breath of the Wild, I still got the vibe that Hylia revises her role as a morally ambiguous goddess. She doesn't necessarily care if Hyrule is leveled entirely or how much life is lost in the process, only that her presence is everlasting and that her realm continues to stand victorious over her adversaries.

Hylaru was once a noble among her people, now reduced to a small handful of Zonai who managed to retain their inherited wealth from the first gilded age, prior to the economic decline. I want to highlight her similarities to Zelda, using her as a foil to really illustrate Zelda's connection to Hylia the goddess. Hylaru is a scholar of sorts—she’s interested in Zonai history and the properties that Zonaite possesses. She wants to uncover the lost history of her people, and in the process, restore what she believes to be rightfully hers as the last standing nobility of her people.

It's during her expeditions to the depths that she discovers the first Secret Stone. Its origins are kept vague for simplicity’s sake, but one thing is certain: it’s powerful and unearthly. It immediately binds to her, and much like her descendant, she finds herself able to bend time at her will. Hylaru is captivated by her discovery and pours over it obsessively. It isn't long before she deduces that it is a fragment of a larger, more powerful artifact. Driven by her insatiable need for knowledge, she revives the ancient mines, and with the aid of her Secret Stone, unearths discoveries lost to time.

The mines are successfully revitalized, and forges are lit for the first time in centuries. Under Hylaru’s ever-growing research institutions, a new process is discovered that further refines Zonaite. Hylaru comes into possession of her second Secret Stone, and constructs are created to autonomously operate the mines and forges.

Eventually, through industry and excavation, Hylaru, unnoticed, comes into possession of seven Secret Stones. Three of these are found in the remains of once-great serpents, buried and forgotten in remote regions of the depths. Another three are found in ancient temple ruins, whose origins remain a mystery even to the Zonai. The last is found on the surface, in a cave, sequestered away in an ancient tomb belonging to a prehistoric king.

But despite her best efforts, she’s unable to locate the eighth and final fragment. However, being in possession of seven of the eight, she is able to amplify her abilities of time manipulation, creating a realm that exists just outside of time and space itself—a sacred realm in which she is able to keep her treasure hidden away until she can reclaim the final fragment.

From here, Hylaru becomes aware of all possible pasts, presents, and futures. Her ambitions become reality, and Hylaru, though mortal, claims godhood. She places statues, which become her eyes in all regions of the realm. She reclaims the title her predecessors lost generations before her, and with her newfound power, wealth, and godhood, she sets her sights on total control of the land.

Playing into that a bit, I think I want Hylaru's arc to follow suit, borrowing from the Skyward Sword prologue I posted about a few days ago in lesser detail.

The relentless mining of Zonaite began to have adverse effects on the land itself. As they delved deeper into the earth to extract the precious mineral, tremors and earthquakes became increasingly frequent, rending the landscape apart. Chasms opened in the earth, and from these cracks emerged creatures long sealed away—monsters and horrors that had once been imprisoned beneath the surface. These ancient abominations spread terror across the land, sowing chaos and destruction, while the Zonai continued to push forward in their pursuit of power. As the land grew more unstable and dangerous, the Zonai found themselves more isolated from the world around them. The other peoples of Hyrule struggled against the rising tide of monsters and the encroaching chaos. Yet the Zonai, indifferent to the suffering they had caused, continued their pursuit of progress, “unaware” of the destruction left in their wake. In time, Hylaru, seeing the world slipping into ruin beneath her feet, devised a solution: to raise the Zonai above the chaos they had created. Using the very power of Zonaite, the Zonai elevated vast swaths of land into the skies, forming floating islands where they could live in peace, away from the monsters and the tremors that ravaged the earth. These sky islands became the new homeland of the Zonai, a paradise above the rising storms. Here, they could continue their work, oblivious to the consequences below. While the Zonai prospered in their skyward refuge, the land beneath them was left to decay. The monsters roamed freely, the chasms remained open, and the other peoples of Hyrule were left to fend for themselves. The Zonai, in their isolation, had severed their connection to the world they had once ruled directly. Their forges continued to burn and their mines autonomously continued to eat away at the earth beneath them.

With the remaining Zonai safe, the Goddess Hylaru descended upon the surface where she joined the land dwellers, offering them protection from the monstrous forces in exchange for subservience. All the while, the mines below the surface continued to ravage the land as Hylaru continued her search for the remaining Secret Stone.

Hylaru eventually locates the eighth piece from the sacred realm in a timeline adjacent to her own. From there, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom take place up until Sonia's death, where the DSAU diverges. This explains away the missing Triforce from BotW and ToTK, while adding more motive and depth to Hylia's character.

Time travel plots can be difficult to handle, but my intent is that BotW and ToTK happen before DSAU , obviously. However, ToTK's canonical ending becomes the "bad end" of this AU, in which Hylaru—disguised as Hylia—is successfully able to convince Zelda to relinquish her Secret Stone to her. Hylaru then fuses the pieces together, and the Triforce is complete.

My thinking is that, Hylaru's entire goal is to establish the Royal Family as the insurance that protects her divine treasure. This extends to Ganon murdering Sonia and becoming the demon king.

Hylaru’s manipulation of Ganon is key to her plan. Turning Ganon into the Demon King would ensure that the cycle of conflict continues. The Triforce—and the royal family’s possession of it—would be forever necessary to keep the land’s balance in check. Ganon’s descent into darkness would ensure that the cycle of violence between him and the royal family persists for all time, with each generation needing the Triforce to protect Hyrule from the chaos he unleashes. Hylaru's rationale is that this perpetual cycle of conflict ensures that the Zonai’s influence over Hyrule remains unshakable. The Triforce remains at the center of Hyrule's legacy, and Hylaru's "bloodline" will continue to guide the land.

Hylaru, as the figurehead Hylia, becomes more than just a manipulative figure—she is the architect of the empire in Hyrule, the one who has shaped the royal family's destiny and continues to pull the strings from the shadows. Her divine masquerade as Hylia allows her to be worshiped as a god, masking her true nature as a power-hungry monarch who seeks to maintain supremacy at all costs.

She may believe that her reign as Hylia will bring order and stability to Hyrule, but it comes at the cost of the individual will and freedom of the people. She wants to ensure that the Triforce remains necessary, and the endless cycle of violence between the Royal Family and Ganon continues to feed the power imbalance that places her at the top.

[fitzs-space]

I absolutely love ur mer designs for Etho, Grian and our lovely sea monster ofc lol. Do you have any more in depth refs for their designs, id love to see more of how they look if possible! /nf ofc

only really had the couple rough sketches for their designs unfortunately! given its how I work with most of my stuff with just quick sketches like this. But I'll give the couple details I remember adding into their designs! Main notes will be I spent more time on Etho because I knew they'd be seen the most,, also that this this Is a default of how I've always drawn mermaids, with the whole dark eyes and covered in scales and fins, more siren esk in a sense.

with Etho the main things I remember adding is chancing the headband and gloves to be more like kelp being wrapped around/ braided, because In general I like drawing mermaid outfits with a more found object type vibe to them. the other main thing was intentionally giving them 9 fins in their design, 6 on the tail, 2 on their fourarms, and the one on the back. Cause I enjoy drawing Etho with the kitsune vibe. even though I;ve only ever drawn them with the full ears n tail like,, once or twice? who knows.

Also! points points, finally had an excuse to draw their tattoos!

only notes I really had for Grian was wanting him to have the rounded Fins cause feather vibes. and I never really looked up actual fish or animals when I draw quick designs, so I go off pure vibes and vague memory of what I think the animal looks like,,, and we end up with stuff like this.

and drew them with the void damage again! thought it would look pretty to have a tail and scales that looked like a void/spacelike. and It wouldn't have been a good colour pallet to have him in just pure red with the poncho and tail bein the same colour. I did also try the white hair too, even just being streaks like my s5 Ex design, but It wasn't really working out.

I looked at my old design of Xb and went, "what can I do to make this being even prettier." and here we are /hj the full sea monster style Is something only like five of the hermits would have seen, so its not a common thing. I'd like to think Xb also like triples in size when like this, but its hart to show that when its just a single character shot like this. the default Xb design I will use is the "just some guy" kinda thing with only a couple fishy details if you look close enough. the whole a couple scales around the eyes like freckles and a vague impression of gills that are mostly covered up buy the hoodie anyways. the third eye is something Xb always keeps closed, and is normally hidden behind bangs

yada yada, I draw my Xb design as a character who just does everything to act as "Just some guy" and not as a full on monster of the deep sea kind thing only other design notes would be me adding the runes into Xb's horns, cause I've got some random magics lore Ideas, and I've been meaning to also add some to Tango's design as well and I originally had drawn Xb's earrings as a way to match with Hypnos, forgot that I drew this one with just a teardrop,, but I know my Hypno design does have both a eye and a bell on his earrings. Silly reference to a cool fic that was a good chunk of inspiration to how I characterize my Xb

Idk, not as many thoughts behind these designs as I had in the ties comic, but still a couple none the less!

[thydungeongal]

I somewhat like Sword World's take on orcs (as far as action-adventure ttrpgs go, that's it). I may have misinterpreted something because I only read lore once, but hear me out:

Orcs and other evil humanoids, called "barbarous", are all evil, that's correct. But the setting doesn't take naturalistic approach to biology, instead it works on quasi-Buddhist metaphysics. All sentient creatures possess similar souls, and they are trapped in constant cycle of death and rebirth. But when people accumulate too much bad karma their souls become scarred and get reborn as various deformed creatures that retain all their flaws and usually continue to accumulate them until their souls degrade to animalistic level completely.

Obviously, it still has problematic implications because it states that certain distinct group of people is always evil (though maybe some of them go against their previous ethos and heal their soulscars, I am not sure), but because of metaphysical approach it reverses cause and consequence of biological essentialism and makes it clear that your characters can become barbarous themselves if they accumulate enough unwholesome karma

I do agree that this is like somewhat better than the biological essentialism a lot of fantasy RPGs espouse! In fact, it is not unlike one of the alternate takes on orcs provided by Chivalry & Sorcery. As I have said before, by default C&S very much takes the "orcs are just guys" approach that is the one I very much prefer. The alternative is to very much treat orcs as evil spirits given flesh, taking the assumption that the word "orc" popularized by Tolkien is cognate with the word "orcneas" that appears in Beowulf (which has been translated alternately as "evil spirit" or "revenant").

Anyway, point being: I think you get into trouble when you try to mix the two approaches. Orcs are either just some guys or they are evil given flesh, and these two approaches shouldn't be mixed. (This is also the approach taken by The Monster Overhaul, one of my favorite D&D-ish monster books: it defaults to the "orcs are people" approach but provides the alternative approach as an option, but explicitly states that you really should never mix the two.)

And I agree with you that the Sword World approach isn't entirely unproblematic, but I do feel it is a lot better than "because of fantasy biotruths orcs feel a natural calling towards evil, but if raised by a loving human couple they may find goodness in their hearts"

[the-hipster-nugget]

yeah I saw that I was very proud of my legacy haha. Anyways the lily pad lore is that during 3rd life, the boat boys’ first and most significant interaction was when they kinda just chatted for a bit in a swamp — Joel was trying to make a lily pad monopoly (kinda like the sand monopoly) and he found Etho and they started talking. But yeah basically they first really “met” while in their boats.

Anyways I think it’s really interesting to look at double life with the third life context because you see parallels like that - Joel as unhinged and Etho along for the ride, and the boats. Obviously desert duo. But also - Martyn pranking Cleo amongst everyone with the creeper effect, and everyone being (jokingly) annoyed with it vs Cleo and Martyn’s tense relationship in DL. Scott and the *lack of* Pearl, and this being the central reason why they are apart in DL. I could say more but within the lore it’s almost like the Watchers were like oh this could’ve been. Let’s rerun third life with these relationships strengthened, except of course they’re the Watchers, so it’s the person who wasn’t part of any of these relationships *because she wasn’t there* and thus in a sense doomed to be alone that wins. The story will always happen like it did in third life. It’s just the details that differ… Idk I think there is a lot more to say but yeah :3

SORRY I READ THIS YESTERDAY BUT JUST MARINATED ON IT TO RESPOND CUZ I LOOOVE THAT I LOVE. THE SYMBOLISM

I love boat boys relationship being.. called that. They really are in a boat together, Joel that violently motivated captain pushing on, and Etho is blankly sitting on the other end of that same boat, just surviving. He’s just going with the wind of the sail, he’s that pale white sail and Joel is the rushing dark blue almost black wave that pushes their rocky boat along . I love boat boys

[flecks-of-stardust]

what are those mods that were cooler than MSC? if they're that good i have to try them out

So upon further thought of this topic, I think i’m misrepresenting my thoughts on my enjoyment of MSC. A more accurate way to put it would be that I had more fun with a lot of other mods. However, I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to compare MSC to them, because the goals of MSC are different from that of other smaller mods. I guess this counts as an analysis post; this will be long.

TLDR: I had more fun with a number of region mods and I think some modcats are cool, but Rain World’s design makes having a DLC that stays true to its core ethos difficult, so I find it hard to really blame the MSC team for MSC being a lackluster DLC.

Regions

When I say that I enjoyed other mods more than MSC, I think a lot of it is in the level editing (ie, lediting), in the sense that region mods have consistently wowed me far more than MSC’s regions ever did. Conceptually, the regions that it added were incredible; I loved seeing Moon as close to her prime as she could ever be shown in Spearmaster’s time (ie LTTM the region; DM), but also finding her ruined structure (MS) as Rivulet, and the idea behind Silent Construct (CL) is also fantastic. But gameplay wise? I didn’t particularly enjoy any of these regions, especially not CL. I hated the spider clogs that I had no way of dealing with, and overall I really just bumrushed it and cheated to get to the story. Metropolis (LC) and Outer Expanse were okay in terms of gameplay, but LC’s tiling and geometry is just kind of boring, if I had to be honest. It’s quite repetitive and not particularly unique, except for maybe Atop the Tallest Tower at a stretch. OE was fine by virtue of not really having another region to compare it to and also being comparatively more plant focused, but honestly, other mods have still wowed me more. So I dunno.

Like when it comes to having regions that feel interesting to explore and are also nice to look at, there’s always Pilgrims’ Ascent and Scorched District, both by Myrmice, and these two also fit so well with vanilla Rain World’s vibe to me. These two, along with the Mast from Snoodle, are all but canon to vanilla to me, because they just fit so well and add to vanilla while still maintaining their own identities as regions. And even beyond having to feel vanilla necessarily, because that’s not always the point of mods, there’s regions like Stormy Coast, Coral Caves, Howling Rift, more that I won’t list because of how long the list will get, but the point is that all of these regions give me more engaging gameplay and paths for exploration than I felt I got for any MSC added region. Granted it’s been a while since I played MSC’s content in full, and my memory of this stuff is generally poor, but I’d rather explore Aqueducts (OA) again than do MS. OA was big and I kept getting lost even with a map, but it was big and disorienting in a way that just felt better to me than MS. The same goes for Deserted Wastelands and CL, personally.

MSC regions feel very vanilla-like to me, in that they’re kind of easy to filter out of your conscious processing so you can focus on other things. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, but for the price that you have to pay for Downpour, I think it falls a little short. The thing is that MSC is very much story-focused, putting more emphasis on the slugcats you play as and their stories rather than the lediting of the regions exclusive to them (in my opinion anyways. I ain’t a leditor). Which brings me to my next point:

Modcats and Story

This might be a bit of a hot take, but I think Rain World is inherently a gameplay focused game that doesn’t support much overt story or plot. The lore in all three vanilla campaigns is entirely optional, and if you kill Moon? Fuck you! No lore for you! And even if you wanted the lore, you have to figure out that pearls have to be taken to her to be read, and that the colored ones have unique lore, and you have to find them and hope the scavs don’t take the pearl first. Even with Hunter, you can choose to toss the green neuron and do your own thing. It doesn’t even stop you from ascending either. The story is entirely optional in Rain World. So then to add any story focused campaign at all inherently takes it away from Rain World’s initial design. And on top of that, you’re playing as a slugcat. It’s really hard to add any sort of story in Rain World that doesn’t circle back to iterators in some way. But then what else do you do besides ascend? Eat a few specific types of food? Gourmand does that. Kill a specific creature? That’s Artificer’s thing. Talk to all the echoes? That’s Saint, and kind of Hunter in a way. What else can you do without radically changing the structure of Rain World itself? And to that end, would that still be Rain World? I’m not saying it’s impossible to have a story based campaign that doesn’t involve iterators, but I do think that it’s really difficult to have them be completely irrelevant to the story and still have an engaging story, because Rain World itself is so not story focused. But if you don’t add story, then what do you do in the campaign that doesn’t make it just a rehashed version of Survivor’s campaign?

So like. I can’t really take issue with MSC’s story based focus that much, because genuinely, what else do you do? And basically any modded slugcat available in 1.9 that I think is worth trying falls into the same category. I think Pitch Black is really promising, but it introduces A Lot of changes to the world, and there’s currently almost no story. Vinki isn’t iterator focused necessarily, but their story still hinges on pissing Pebbles off and is overall very silly (not in a bad way! But it doesn’t fit the vibe of Rain World). And Gravel Eater,, you can’t get more intertwined with iterators than with GE’s story, but they’re still my favorite modcat because of how detailed their story is and how interesting their mechanics are. And if you just have a scug with abilities and no story, that’s… not really interesting to play, because then it’s essentially just Survivor, but you’re able to like, say, make spore puffs for free.

Maybe I’m just not creative enough in this aspect, idk. But genuinely I can’t think of much else to do in this game that doesn’t involve iterators in some way. If you know me, you’d know I’m Iterators McGee who has written 70k+ words about a character who has literally no canon dialogue. I fucking love iterators, but I think their stories should be separate from that of slugcats, but in game, just. How? I genuinely don’t know.

Other Thoughts

I think in some ways I view MSC as more of a framework that has allowed other people to build their own stories off of it. The only other mod that has a scale even remotely comparable to MSC is Drought, which is also iterator centric in story. I can’t speak to its lediting since I haven’t played Drought myself (but I’ve heard the quality… fluctuates?), but story wise… yeah. I don’t know. I just don’t think Rain World can really have a DLC that doesn’t pull it away from its original ethos in some way. I would not want Drought to be a DLC either, as cool as I think it is, and I still value a lot of things about MSC. It’s lackluster as a DLC because again, what sort of campaign can you add that doesn’t add a story that isn’t iterator related in any way?

I guess the way to summarize this is that I think MSC tells some really interesting stories through its gameplay. Even the parts I hated are part of the story it’s trying to tell, and on that front I think it does well. But by virtue of being story focused (and, by virtue of story in this game being very iterator centric), it doesn’t feel as much like Rain World, and so it’s not as good as a DLC as it would have been as just a mod. And now that it exists and is widely used, other people have been spurred to make their own ideas and show their creativity, going bigger and bolder than MSC in some aspects. And regarding me enjoying region mods more than MSC’s lediting, I think enjoying the region for being a region is kind of the fucking point of playing a region mod, whereas that isn’t exactly MSC’s focus. So some things are hard to compare.

This is kind of an incoherent ramble but I hope I got the main points across. I still like MSC and I won’t tolerate anyone bashing it here. You will get blocked.

[thecoddaughter]

Wild Life be feeling like Cliche by Westislonely

˅˅˅˅ explanation for each line below ˅˅˅˅

Grian (to the watchers):

Another bump in the road

I was the greatest thing you owned

Pearl (to the watchers):

If I had some confidence

You would grab my hand and pull me straight to hell when

My blood runs cold

Scar (to the Grian):

I kinda miss you but I don't know how

Since when has silence ever rang so loud?

Grian and Scott: Most wanted, most loved

Scar and Pearl: Most hated, most judged

Impulse (about constantly placing but not winning):

I'll waste all my time

I don't care, I don't mind

BigB (hehehe):

You're seeing my face

But it looks out of place

Martyn (lore master and listener):

I'm such a cliché

But I guess I'll stay anyway

Skizz (to Grian):

Why am I playing your games?

Jimmy (about being cursed):

I wanna get out of my brain

Scott (to all his alliances):

It's a risk I'll have to take

You twist my heart until it's forced to break

But I can't find another way

Tango (to Jimmy):

I kinda miss you but I don't know how

Since when has silence ever rang so loud?

Cleo and Mumbo: Most wanted, most loved

Lizzie and Jimmy: Most hated, most judged

Joel (about putting in energy unmet):

I'll waste all my time

I don't care, I don't mind

Ren (about being back again):

You're seeing my face

But it looks out of place

Etho (about always falling to a certain role):

I'm such a cliché

But I guess I'll stay anyway

Gem: Most needed, I know

Impulse: I want it the most

Cleo (about winning but not winning):

I've wasted my time

But who cares

You don't mind

Pearl (to Scott):

If I am the gun

You'll become undone

Skizz (about Boogey legacy):

It's hard to outrun

But I guess I'll try anyway

[bellshazes]

finally figured out something I've been wrassling with for a week now, which is that I think a lot of fanon stuff wears me out bc I want something different. but I couldn't express that difference btwn what I try to do with my work and what I see popularly - my first thought was I don't love stuff that takes the fictional world too seriously, but I do that too! I don't always dislike it.

but I think what I want more of is people fictionalizing aspects of a series not to say something abt the internal logic or fictional reality of that series, but in order to say sth about the world we live in with it. like if I am writing etho and bdubs listening to each other's eps from their singleplayer worlds the point is abt their irl friendship and the funny ways you can influence someone without directly talking necessarily, and pointing out subtle but direct references they made. and that meta abt grian & etho's audience lore - I know other ppl must think abt what it says for an author/person making things to acknowledge their audience in the work, and how necessary that is as a YTer & all the varied says ppl develop of handling that! to fictionalize it is a kinder thing than the belabored repetition of No Guys, Please Stop X Annoying Behavior a lot of big channels have to go thru. anyway this is not what fandoms largely do but I've been spoiled before and where are the rest of you who do this. email me ever

[ravenlikesbooks]

It is absolutely refusing to let me copy and paste my tags to add ALT text or an ID I am so sorry. It's my tags from when I first reblogged this post.

ANYWAYS OP themself asked me to continue so I am. Because what else am I gonna do on this 6 hour bus ride? (Edit: count weird billboards mainly)

So the thing about Gem is that (with the exception of Empires S1 which is big sad) all of her series are canonically connected. So really if we wanna do a full analysis we should start back at like X-life, Legacy, or her singleplayer worlds. But that's a lot of prelude so I'm just going to jump in starting at her introduction to a lot of the current fandom via Hermitcraft.

So Gem meets a lot of these people for the first or second time. She's flung into the world in a ditch next to Pearl, and within minutes is introduced to the way the hermits play - that of course being a lot of death. She lives and dies and lives again, making friends. Boatem throws themselves into the void like multiple times a minute.

And then the world ends. Suddenly roleplay is a major aspect of this world as well. The moon grows in size and people start making hideouts, space travel, cults. Anything to try and survive. Gem enjoys the roleplay, she's good at it! And when the moon finally crashes she leaves, having fun all the while.

Next season, she comes back.

This on its own is not monumental. She comes back, does some roleplay, builds a base, starts a head dungeon, etc etc. At the same time, she joined Empires Season 2. This is where things get really important. Gem says it herself, she's basically playing dress up. Even from the beginning, before she revealed she was the same person in all her series, she repeatedly emphasized that she decided she was a princess. No claim to the crown, no heroic deed, nothing. For all intents and purposes, she just waltzed in and declared herself princess. Hell, you could argue that unlike many other kingdoms, within universe Dawn didn't even exist until Gem decided it did. This quote is actually from her "I survived 100 days in a minecraft flatworld" video but I feel it applies here anyways. "I also decided that since I am the only sign of intelligent life in this world, I get to be queen."

All of this is to establish that Gem Does Not Care. You can be as nice to her as you want, but if she thinks messing with you will be fun she will do it no hesitation. Gem does what Gem wants, and there is very little you can do to stop her.

Sometime through Hermitcraft s9, Gem learns about another server some of her friends have - a death game.

I want to emphasize this real quick. A death GAME. A game. About death. The game is death. Death is the game. Everyone understand that? Great.

So Gem helps Etho train, before getting thrown in herself to play Cleo's role. And Gem? She loves it. You can see how much she enjoys the chase, how much she relishes in the adrenaline. When Bdubs tries to warn her about Scar she brushes him off, because she's not afraid to take him.

So of course the natural next step is for her to join the games (remember that: games) herself, and as herself.

Gem has fun, as she always does. And that's why the ending of secret life is such a big deal.

Gem views this as a game, and always has. And slowly she realizes that nobody else does. And this comes to a head at the very end when it's the final few. When she tells Pearl "I thought we were friends". And Pearl and Scar kill her.

But she goes out with the most hurt yet still obviously roleplay scream she could have "A 2v1? You guys are gross!"

That's the thing about Gem that makes her so volatile. She is, canonically, the same person everywhere. And with that, more lore heavy servers she is quite literally a character playing a character. Normal pleasantries and tactics like the fawn response Scott tries to appease her with don't work on her, because life is a game, and where's the fun in predicability?

So yes, to quote myself quoting OP once more: "Gem is not a fawn. She's the entire fucking forest."

coughs. Everypony who wishes to hear about scott secret life episode 7 and is old enough to catch their own prey please gather under pride rock or whatever the fuck they say to call an emergency meeting these days. I need everyone to know why this episode is so unusual for him… I take back anything I have ever said about gem in my entire life that implied disinterest; Gem and her zombie apocalypse scared the SHIT out of Scott. NOBODY HAS EVER MANAGED TO DO THAT BEFORE.

[astronomical-bagel]

YES i want to hear what pokemon the last-lifers would be

OKAY okay okay i had SOOO much fun doing this, i spent hours looking through my pokemon book and even looking up some when i couldn't find one that matched perfectly. Some of these are based off of vibes and favoritism of pokemon, but i swear that i have great reasons for every pokemon i chose and i put real thought behind these. We’ll go in order of the pokemon alphabetically. !!Also, I have to make this in two posts bc of the ten-image limit. !! Ok? Ok!

Jimmy -> Absol (Dark Pokemon)

Ok this is literally the y/n pokemon. It even gets wings in its mega evolution!! But it matches jimmy for one important reason: the Absol showing up is a sign that a disaster is about to happen. Y’know, like a canary. (Fun fact: there is no canary pokemon, which is vv surprising to me.) Anyways the absol’s mega evolution can kill people by flapping its wings at them LOL. smth smth grian in 100hrs and all that

2. Martyn -> Chesnaught (Grass-Fighting Pokemon)

There are two reasons why I chose Chesnaught for martyn. One, i wanted him to be a grass type, bc idk he wears green!! It fits him. And two, i wanted him to be loyal. The enty for this pokemon says, “When its friends are in trouble, Chesnaught uses its own body as a shield. Its shell is tough enough to protect it from a powerful explosion.” So. that seems pretty loyal to me. I almost chose Sawsbuck, the deer pokemon, because it changes with the season and Martyn used to do that (his main skin is technically his “spring skin”, but i thought going for smth more focused on loyalty would be best.

3. Tango - Cyndaquil (Fire Pokemon)

I HAD to make tango a fire type, you know i couldnt not. This is an example of my favoritism, bc honestly i could have chosen any other fire type pokemon, but this ones always been my favorite. Anyways, this guy’s flames get hotter with its emotions, and prone to angry outbursts (cough cough last life lmao).

4. Joel -> Gengar (Ghost-Poison Pokemon)

I chose this guy simply bc of how SKRUNKLY he is. The bulbapedia describes him as, “… very mischievous, and at times, malicious. It enjoys playing practical jokes and casting curses, such as pretending to be one's shadow, then behaving erratically.” Very joel-y, in my opinion.

5. Ren -> Houndoom (Dark-Fire Pokemon)

This one was interesting. Theres no end to dog pokemon, but this one in particular was listed as loyal (It cooperates with others skillfully. When it becomes your partner, it's very loyal to you as its Trainer and will obey your orders) Seeing how in third and last life ren was ride-or-die with his chosen team, i thought this one was best. Also, its SUPER edgy so i thought it fit, given his tendency for dramatics (/lh). A high contender for Ren was the Aegislash, a sword pokemon that was commonly used by royalty, but its lore was a taaad too regicidal – and honestly, homicidal in general – to make the cut. (no pun intended)

6. Etho -> Lucario (Fighting-Steel Pokemon)

When i was choosing a pokemon for etho, i knew for a fact i wanted it to be a fighting type. This pokemon can sense the auras around people and pokemon and predict their movements. Etho has always felt like a very strategic guy to me, thought tbh im not sure if that was propaganda from the ethogirls or if its from my own perception of the guy. Anyways, they seemed to match each other. I almost chose the Oshawatt, bc idk i like the vibes, but it wasnt a fighting type.

7. Scott -> Lurantis (Grass Pokemon)

When looking for a pokemon for scott i wanted it to be some sort of flower-like pokemon, with the whole flower husbands and his love for cute things, but i wanted it to have a solid head on its shoulders. This pokemon is based off of the Orchid mantis, which i have been fascinated with for ages. It looks so pretty!! Anyways, this pokemon both looks like a flower and is known for its “elegant moves”. It is also very discerning when it comes to who it is loyal to. If you dont take care of it well enough, it wont trust you. I feel like that works for Scott a lot because he wont team up with anyone unless he really thinks its worth it.

OKAY thats the end of the first post, ill post the other one real quick!!

[acerace]

...you have opened my eyes to a vast universe of VintageBeef lore that I was unaware of. I knew about the New Hermit Order, of course, and the UHC invention, and I've watched a few of his CTM things but -- I will take all the info and lore you feel like giving out because Beef is amazing and my knowledge is so small.

Vintagebeef my beloved <3

So the thing is, right, until about 2016 I only watched two (2) youtubers- Vintagebeef for Minecraft and aDrive for Pokemon (and funnily enough both of them are named Dan irl). So I've watched most of Beef's videos over the years and have a general knowledge of most of his stuff, except because it's been like a decade I don't remember where most of the lore comes from XD

The thing with him is that he doesn't do Lore tm the way other mcyters often do lore- he doesn't have an extensive RP series to draw from like Grian, doesn't have a solo world with steadily increasing amounts of lore like Etho or Zisteau, and while he's played on SMPs and been involved in storylines before it's not really the focus of his episodes unlike with Evo or Legacy or Empires

So where does that leave us?

IRL, Beef always has multiple series running at the same time. Often he's playing on an smp while doing a singleplayer, often modded, series as well as a CTM or modpack with a group of friends. For example, right now he's playing on Hermitcraft, doing weekly Pixelmon and Building a Zoo episodes, and a CTM map with Slip. And to me, this translates to one thing: Beef is an adventurer. He travels frequently- he explores a world and when he decides he's done, he leaves for the next one. That's the basis of my personal interpretation of his series and his character for my writing.

Ok so reading this back, this got extremely long and didn't explain much in the way of lore, somehow? If anyone has any additions to add please do so, I am very definitely leaving out a lot and would love to see what other lore people remember and are using for Beef! I didn’t include the Hermitcraft stuff since my memory of season 4 is blurry (his base was themed after the Martian, that much I know, and he and Iskall were buddies :D) and most of the s5 NHO lore is best watched from Bdub’s perspective from what I remember, and the only s6 stuff is a single line in Hermitgang and then the Area 77 arc with its possibility of an NHO reunion which we did not get rip. And s7 of course had the cloning machine and also the Podzol Party as the main lore. So all the original rambling is still below the cut though it is very long, and I'm gonna bullet point the main stuff here instead:

Actual canonical things:

Invented UHC and was the only survivor of the first ever uhc (Mindcrack UHC s1)

Married to an ender dragon (one of the UHCs I think), later father to a different dragon (Mindcrack season 3? I think?)

Might not have legs if you choose to take that joke as canon (Mindcrack s2)

Was a wizard (RAD)

is a zookeeper (Building a Zoo) 

Had a wife and kids (Sims in Minecraft)

Part of the Trial of the B Team court case (Mindcrack)

NHO founder, founder of the Podzol Party (Hermitcraft)

Created a cloning machine that sort of works (Hermitcraft)

Played the Forest which is I believe the first time he and Keralis played together (look up the trigger warnings for this one, it's a horror game)

Was the creator/owner of Sourceblock SMP (featuring some familiar faces if you know Legacy, Empires, or MCC) and there is literal magic from a mysterious sourceblock of water that teleports people and summons mobs and probably more stuff that I haven't seen yet since I'm still watching it myself

Things you can infer:

Good with animals (Life in the Woods, Pixelmon, Ark)

Is a car nerd (irl and all of the car games he's played)

Is a highly experienced adventurer who has traveled through dozens of worlds both vanilla and modded, across multiple dimensions (Twilight Forest, the Aether, the Betweenlands, Limbo), completed dozens of monuments, fought in blood sports, survived apocalypse after apocalypse, tamed dinosaurs, and played a lot of prop hunt and golf with your friends

If you're looking for what to watch for lore purposes, I'd say the Mindcrack UHCs and Team Canada's RAD series are pretty good, definitely Sourceblock and HC s5, plus the Diversity CTM maps and Ruins of the Mindcrackers maybe? And Mindcrack Prank Wars for the chaos and the origin of Team Canada. And if you can handle horror than the Forest is fun and if you don't do horror you can watch the Pojkband play golf or prop hunt they're hilarious I love them sm I want a Pojkband reunion So Bad 

Beef's first series was a singleplayer series in beta 1.4_01 though he had played the game extensively before that, and was a big fan of Guude, having watched his own Minecraft videos. The series was functionally a hardcore one where if he died Beef would delete the world and start again! I haven't actually Watched this series so idk if he died or how often lmao. When Guude made Mindcrack, which was btw one of the very first Minecraft SMPs, he also hosted a competition for people to join, and Beef submitted a video (which is still viewable on his channel I believe!) and won, and was added to Mindcrack in season 2 :D (fun fact, Guude said that even if Beef hadn’t won he would have added him anyway) 

Two running jokes emerged from Mindcrack- pulling a Vintagebeef and Beef doesn't have legs. The first is a reference to Beef dying of fall damage (I believe the exact instance was him trying to jump into his swimming pool and failing spectacularly) and after the incident, every time someone died of fall damage they were pulling a Vintagebeef. The second joke comes from Guude, who joked that the reason Beef wasn't going to a convention was because he didn't have legs, and then he pranked Beef's base by building a giant pair of legs at the entrance to his castle so you had to walk between them to get into the base. This joke has long since died and both Beef and Guude feel pretty bad about it iirc because there were people who genuinely thought Beef was disabled and were emailing him supportive messages and stuff oops. So if you go looking on the Salad or find old Mindcrack fics, you might see references to Beef having prosthetic legs!

Mindcrack also brought about the creation of several Player groups- Team Nancy Drew, Team Canada, and GOB to name a few relevant to Beef. Team Nancy Drew consists of Beef, Pauseunpause, Guude, and Baj, who formed to investigate a prank on one of the members but I forget who. They're named Nancy Drew after the detective! Team Canada also formed in retaliation to pranks, with it consisting of Beef, Etho, and Pause, the three Canadian members on the server (not including Adlington who moved to Canada but never joined the group). There was also a Team America who pranked them with American flags everywhere. GOB is Guude, OMGChad, and Beef, who played stuff like the Ragecraft, Pantheon, and Monstrosity ctms together but that's way down the line lol

Team Nancy Drew is also notable for inventing UHC. It was Beef's brainchild but it was the four of them who first played it! The first UHC had the four of them working to kill the dragon with no natural regen, with everyone dying but Beef, who "won" the UHC. The second uhc was still dragon focused and iirc is where Beef married the dragon? Memories are hazy but they do kill the dragon in this one I think. UHC was then revamped as a pvp event and became a regular Mindcrack game every few months, featuring most of the Mindcrackers and several special guests, including Dinnerbone, who as we know Thanos-snapped Doc's arm out of existence as a result of Doc killing him in one of them

In one of the seasons of Mindcrack, Beef invited swedish Mindcracker and good friend Anderzel to go caving with him and invented ABBA Rules caving, where the winner takes it all. ABBA Rules is a game where each ore (and also dungeon loot like nametags) is assigned a point value and the person with the most points at the end wins and gets to keep all the stuff collected from the game.

In Mindcrack season 3?, Beef punched the ender dragon in an... awkward area, so when the dragon died and left the egg behind, Guude said Beef was the father of the egg XD I don't remember if I watched s3 so I have no idea if anything Happened with this concept but *history of the world voice* you could make lore out of this!

So Team Canada has played a Lot of CTM maps (which fun fact were pretty much invented by another Mindcrack member, Vechs, with his Super Hostile series! Super Hostile has a bunch of things called "Zistonian", which are references to another Mindcrack member Zisteau, who has a very wild singleplayer series with even wilder lore but I digress). In Ruins of the Mindcrackers, they had a running joke that Beef was Etho and Pause's mom, which is a joke we can leave in the past actually /lh. They also played all the Diversity maps, Sky Factory, Terra Restore, Uncharted Territory uhhh and a couple more ctms and adventure maps! Each map kinda has its own story so in Diversity 3 for example they were trapped in a simulation? I think? Team Canada also recently played the Roguelike Adventures and Dungeons modpack, aka RAD, in which Beef was a wizard with a magic staff that could do anything from summon lightning to control hostile mobs.

Sourceblock SMP is a vanilla survival 1.14 series that ran for one season and the series starts with each of the Players being drawn to a strange sparkling water source that, once they touch it, brings them to the Sourceblock world. It also summons a giant zombie at one point. There's probably more lore for this series but like I said I haven't watched it all the way through yet 

He has a Patreon server called VintageCraft and has done a series or two on there as well, and played a few UHCs with them, so lore that how you will! 

Beef also played a few popular mods, notably Pixelmon, Life in the Woods, and Feed the Beast, with LitW being singleplayer and the other multiplayer. He's also recently played the Zoo and Wild Animals mod a lot. He did a short series with the Minecraft Comes Alive mod where he married one of the villagers and had two children, so that's canon now :D he’s played a Lot of Pixelmon starting when the mod first came out iirc (he chose Turtwig in his first series and built a Grass gym, then made a Normal gym in another series in uhh 2016) and he still plays to this day. Quite a few Hermits played on his Pixelmon servers with him, like Wels, Etho, Iskall, Stress, Slip, Zueljin, and also Guude and Phedran (a Mindcrack adjacent player and creator of the LitW modpack) and a few Mindcrackers on the older servers 

Mindcrack and friends played a lot of other games too- 7 Days to Die, Ark Survival Evolved, Unturned, to name a few, so you can pull a lot of lore out of these as well. Speaking of friends and non-Minecraft games, Beef teamed up with Pause, Keralis, and Slip (a former Hermit) to play the horror game the Forest, which saw them stuck on an island trying to survive against terrifying mutated human... things. They played it a few times as the game updated but as afaik it's the first time Beef played with Keralis and possibly Slip and since the game starts with the Player's airplane crashing, that could totally be how Beef first met them in-universe 

I... think? that’s everything I mentioned in the tags? There is probably way more stuff I’ve forgotten that stems from inside jokes and things that happen within each series, but I hope that was a) helpful and b) at least somewhat comprehensible lmao 

[camtankerous]

please please talk to us about actual canary jimmy and those flour bastards

AH. okay well. If u insist

Okay im typing this on my phone as i pass out so pls excuse any mistypes and long winding sentences. This is a stream of consciousness that youve just uncorked my friend

ANYWAY. I really really love canary-and-coal-miner team rancher art, right? And i love birds, and strip mining in minecraft, so i thought. Well! What if i came up with a funny little au where tango is a coal miner and jimmy is his little canary buddy?

Of course, actual coal mining is very scary, and i only write funny goofy things, so this is Mined Craft™️ coal mining. Anyway, tango takes up a job working for some unnamed mining company working under TFC, since i love his mining videos

I havent decided which other hermits to include yet? Im def including grian, joel, and lizzy, since theyre often featured in jimmy’s non-minecraft videos. I dont want to include too many and risk bogging down the story bc i get too caught up in writing accurate voices for everyone, but i might also write in some cameos of bdubs and etho or something. I want to include scott but im afraid i wont be able to properly balance a characterization of him hamming up on the “why yes my ex husband DID disappear under mysterious circumstances and i got most of his items. Why do you ask :)” facade while also deep down being quite sad and upset about jimmy just vanishing off the face of the earth. And then if i DID balance it properly im afraid it would come off more angsty than intended

ANYWAY. Uh. I dont know much lore about hermitcraft bc im still catching up on the lore-heavy videos (i like to just listen to people build/design things while i strip mine in my own world), but i’m thinking there’s enough wacky magic hijinks that i could justify my idea

My idea being that jimmy actually wasnt ALWAYS a canary, he wound up getting turned into one due to [redacted] (bc i havent come up with that part yet and am not particularly pressed to do so). Jimmy used to be a canary hybrid but now he’s full canary - still the same on the inside, but now he’s a tiny bird that loves to cause problems

None of his friends know this happened to him, or else they would have been working hard to get him back to normal. Instead, grian notices two things about this particular canary: he’s way more belligerent and vocal than the other canaries, hardly acting like a prey animal at all, and he seems to be prone to winding up in the parts of the mine that get gas leaks. He’s actually starting to get concerned that this poor little bastard bird has brain damage at this point and thats why hes Like That

So, anyway, grian and the others start calling this canary Timmy, bc it kind of reminds them of their missing friend who was also a canary hybrid and a little shit with terrible luck. They tend to keep timmy on the sidelines bc theyre worried hes been through too much and dont want him passing out anymore

Then, along comes tango! Tango, a blazeborn, is of course a major safety risk inside of a mine where gas leaks and combustibles are common. they trust him well enough to be careful and not blow himself up, but they also cant send him down the usual mineshafts, so they have him working mostly near the deepest parts of the cave, away from the coal veins and closer to the lava pits that he can withstand easier, so he winds up mining alone for the most part

And they think, hey, this is perfect! Now we have someone we can send timmy with so that he’s not cooped up all day. So tango winds up spending several hours a day just exploring deep caves and talking to himself, hanging out with this weird little bird that grian and joel love to bully

Anyway, long story short, this is me indulging in my own personal love of tiny animals and basically writing about tango going “ive had timmy for one day but if anything happened to him i’d blow this place up with myself in it”. Its just dumb little fluffy stuff like jimmy and tango doing back and forth whistle calls (jimmy of course being safely tucked away in an oxygen chamber the whole time), tango absolutely decking his room out with lots of perches and things bc he noticed jimmy hates cages, and tango spending his free time walking around with a bird nestled in his hair

Mostly this is just snapshot scenes in my head, stuff like grian explaining to tango how timmy got his name and what not. But yea this has been taking over my brain for weeks now!!!! Please help me i still need to finish my other wips!!!!!!!!!!

[martuzzio]

with a craft so big and a crew so relatively small, are there any superstitions or ghost stories about lesser-used areas of the ship?

I’m sure there are tons! There’d definitely be a lot of superstitions and things like that based off of the various cultures we have going on in this group. I’ll definitely need you guys to come up with some of them! Here’s some superstitions and lore for Tango and Beef!

Tango’s nether demon species believes in nature spirits. These spirits represent the natural environment and inhabit things like lava, animals, plants, and metal ores within the ground. This cultural belief in spirits has made the nether demons very aware of their environment and makes them one of the greenest and cleanest species in the universe. Their high-tech civilizations are built in ways that disturb the environment as little as possible and they harvest all of their power from sources like lava waterfalls and geothermal vents without destroying the ecosystem. Their generators produce so much clean energy that they’re able to regularly export the excess power to other nether species. This means that not only are the nether demons the most powerful species in the entire nether dimension, they’re also one of the most well-liked among all sentient nether life. 

Because of this cultural belief in nature spirits, Tango genuinely believes there’s some sort of spirit living in the Hermit Craft’s engine bay. He thinks this because the engines get finicky when he’s not around for a while and he sometimes hears weird noises echoing through the cavernous space. What’s actually happening is that the end crystals (which Tango doesn’t know exist - he has no idea what’s actually powering the engines underneath everything else) powering the engines need frequent realignment to run properly (which is their only downfall as a power source). The strange noises he hears are from the metal expanding and contracting in weird ways due to the crystals moving out of alignment and getting too close to one side of the engine core walls. The pinging, groaning, and creaking noises echo through the monstrous engine bay in weird ways and end up sounding like a growling beast. Tango believes that the metal in the engine bay contains a spirit and therefore treats the entire area of the ship with an incredible amount of respect. It’s why he spends so much time down there - the more time he’s there making sure the spirit is happy, the more the spirit will like him and want to protect him and his friends. In a convoluted way, Tango’s obsession with the engine bay and this spirit within the metal is what helps the hermits be the hermits: since the engine is in top condition at all times, the Hermit Craft constantly runs at full potential and lets the crew perform all of the crazy stunts that make them famous.

Beef, to the average person, would seem like he has very peculiar habits about food and food preparation. This is because his planet’s culture is very family and community-focused. On his home planet, preparing, serving, and eating food are extremely important cultural activities that symbolize the bonds between people. This can be seen from something as simple as making breakfast for the family to something as important as two politicians making dinner together as they form deals and treaties. Since most people on Beef’s planet spend a majority of their workday farming or herding alpacas in the mountains, the main meal of the day is dinner, which starts to be prepared as the sun begins to set and is eaten once the sun has set completely. Families convene every day to prepare and eat dinner together. Eating takes well over an hour, as people sit and talk about their days and tell stories to each other while they eat. When they’re done with dinner, a few people from each family go out into the warm night air to give what they didn’t eat to those in need, creating a larger familial unit that encompasses the entire community.

Because of these cultural practices surrounding food, Beef has very strict rules about meal preparation and consumption that he implores the other hermits to follow as best they can. These rules manifest themselves in different ways aboard the Hermit Craft. Firstly, he hates preparing food by himself. He would love to always have someone in the kitchen while he cooks. This usually ends up being either Etho or Doc, since both of them bring produce to the kitchen for dinner anyway, but other people who make common appearances include Bdubs, Wels, Ren, and Keralis. While the whole family usually helps with meal preparation on Beef’s home planet, he’s content with someone simply hanging out with him in the kitchen as he cooks if they’re not feeling up to helping him make dinner. Once dinner is done, Beef’s second rule comes into play - he tries to get as many hermits to the dinner table at the same time, even if they’re not hungry (which usually isn’t the case since they’re used to the meal schedule by now). When everyone is at the table together, it’s easy for people to socialize and unwind after a long day of working on their various tasks. They talk, laugh, and enjoy themselves instead of eating and leaving as quickly as they can. Of course, not everyone can stay as long as others, but they try because it makes Beef happy. Finally, Beef hates the idea of people eating alone. It’s one of the most isolating and mentally distressing things he can think of. If someone is hungry in the middle of the night and wants company, Beef will sit with that hermit and eat something light and small so the hermit isn’t forced to eat by themselves. All of Beef’s personal rules about food have nurtured a positive community among the hermits. They know they can look forward to their daily time where they get to relax, catch up with friends, and eat excellent food.

Space outlaws lore can be seen here.

[jaeyleo]

That is!! So cool!!! So, Ethos is in the past and doing tests and stuff on the egos? Very Interesting. What are the other egos like? Or Ethos? I am very very interested for this idea!!

thank you so much!! i’m glad you do!!

lemme just note that @florenceisfalling was a big help in getting some lore and other things set up so big huge kudos to them thank u thank u !!

all six boys are as follows, note, i’m still developing their personalities so they may change later on! this is just so far:

jameson: he/him, straight and asexual. was taken from the 1920s into 2020 to test with the others. he has limited time powers, for example he can rewind one full day, or jump forward one full day. once he jumps forward though he is unable to go back. anyway! he’s pretty serious and just a little bit grumpy most of the time, he doesn’t like it here. jamie is very skilled with knives and guns and fists, and is fascinated by ethos even though at first, he hates their guts. jameson softens up over time, but for the most part hes pretty grumpy and just wants to read his books, and spends a lot of his days missing his own time. very protective of jackie.

chase: he/him, straight (?). the most easy going of the group. very soft spoken and extremely empathetic. he was the first to break through ETH- 05’s coding and get them to show some sort of emotion, and he was a BIG help in getting the others to actually like ethos. chase is always trying to make everyone laugh, keep their hopes up, but internally he is extremely afraid he won’t get to see his wife and child again. he has depression, but ethos makes sure he gets his prescribed medication to make his life at least a LITTLE easier on him. he and henrik are extremely close as they knew each other before they came to the clinic.

henrik: he/him, gay. henrik is ALWAYS trying to take care of the others along w chase, especially after appointments. he often forgets to take care of himself because of this. henrik has a lot of trouble sleeping, often has random panic attacks and has undiagnosed OCD. he is very kind and patient, but he’s always worrying about something. you can find him running around the clinic during the day checking the medication, checking on the egos, etc. if he doesn’t have something to focus on he will get extremely anxious so if he says he’s gonna take ur vitals for the third time today he’s gonna take ur vitals for the third time today.

jackie: he/they, gay. youngest of the group at 19, hes very bubbly and warm and pretty chill! he’s laid back most of the time, but it’s very easy to make him laugh as he kinda has that gen z humor where if u show tbem a picture of a can of beans that’s over saturated and says “B E aNS 👁👁” theyre gonna lose it. same w chase. anyway he has a few powers, he can do a little telekinesis, can (weakly) control water and metal, and is oddly ODDLY lucky. like theyve always got a four leaf clover on them or somethin. hes pretty brave, and is learning how to fight properly from jameson! catch them sparring while henrik goes !!!!!!!!!! when jamie knicks jackie’s cheek with a knife.

marvin: he/him, pansexual. FTM transgender! marvin is kinda the leader of their group, well, except for ethos. he is VERY clever, very quick on his feet, and holds far too many secrets. definitely very mysterious. marvin is very confident and has a soft voice, strong, and enjoys singing little songs ! he has powerful POWERFUL magic, including hypnosis, various spells, he can make plants grow/heal/die, bend light, water, and shadows, and many other things. he’s been studying for a very long time. he also is able to talk to and sense ghosts and other supernatural things ! marvin is by far the most stoic of the group, and although he may seem like a tough guy, he deep down loves the group sssoooo much, and would put his life on the line for all of them. both he, jameson, and jackie all have a second chip inside their skin which prevents them from using their magic unless permitted. if they try to use more than allowed, it will give them an electric shock until they stop. ethos has lowered their restrictions on magic once they complained of it building up, but they still are not really allowed to do much with their magic anymore :/

ethos: he/they/she/it, ethos wasn’t programmed to be a certain gender. and aro/ace, as most robots are in this future as they weren’t made for romantic love! hes kind of a prototype? a new kind of android the future hasn’t tested much on bc they were very eager for the creation of the perfect being. ethos starts out as very quiet and cold, he doesn’t know much about the egos’ personalities so he can’t do much w them. this changes as time goes on. because he wasn’t tested much, he can feel emotions if taught them, this mostly includes observing humans. since his creation hes been very lonely, and taught he is lesser than humans so a lot of times he’ll comfort himself by saying poetry or going through files or something. (thanks flora for giving the idea of ethos just babbling to himself at night when he feels his most sad or lonely!) ethos doesn’t smile or laugh, and when he does it’s either him mimicking one of the boys to make them comfortable or it’s genuine and he smiles for a second and then it goes back to normal. it’s a little odd to look at. anyway he doesn’t enjoy giving appointments, in fact he’ll go against coding once in a while and fake the data so the boys don’t have to suffer. this is bad news for ethos! which i will explain more on later :3 overall hes very sweet and comforting and just wants people to be safe. he loves taking care of people, especially when they’re sick so if one of the boys is sick it’s usually both ethos and henrik fussing over them in their own ways.

sorry this is so long!! also ethos’s is rushed cos i gtg to work but i’ll explain more on this if y’all would like, thank u guys for the interest!

[docholligay]

An unnecessarily lengthy ode to the deadlock disaster children

Decided I had to submit this instead of comment endlessly on your post… because I just love Ashe and McCree so much more than I could have ever predicted?? I would feel about characters from this game?? You already know this but you did ask for reasons, so I’m gonna give them to ya.

I was drawn to Ashe when I first picked up the game because I tend to prefer longer ranged weapons and also because I took one look at her and said ‘i choose you, criminal lesbian.’ I didn’t even watch Reunion for a little while, but I was/still am so into her weapon-focused kit and the challenge that learning to play her even relatively well has posed (I still run out of bullets and boop myself off ledges more than I care to admit). So for Ashe far more than McCree, there’s a gameplay element to her that does actually factor into loving her as a character. 

I wanted to play McCree a lot when I first got the game, because cowboy, and because me (the prism of my experience of rural life has affected a lot of what I see in mcCree and is probably a solid chunk of the reason I was able to write him into a character I liked) but his gameplay was just too hard and I didn’t love him like I did Tracer, so there was no reason for me to continue. 

Obviously we have very little canon for her, but I love a lot of what we do have. I love that she’s quick to anger and bossy and pretty selfish and quite good at what she does. I love that she clearly cares about McCree even as she isn’t prepared to ever let go of her grudge against him, that’s the kind of tension and conflict that I am always so into, perhaps in part because I have so much experience with it personally. She’s got high expectations of everyone, probably too high, and she prizes loyalty above all else - feels very relatable to me, tbh. I love her aesthetic and her ridiculous voice acting and I really really really love BOB’s mannerisms and general role in her life.

If and when I am ever tempted to do something with Ashe, I think the most interesting thing to work with would be her sort of spoiled brat mentality, and how that hits up against Actual Cowboy Ethos (I utterly, utterly reject the idea of the Deadlock Gang being a biker gang, at least before Ashe took over. I’ts a boring choice made for aesthetics.) The idea of her having conflict with everyone who taught her everything she knows and completely thinking that SHE’S RIGHT really intrigues me. 

As far as headcanons/my writing of her goes, though, I feel like I’m trying to flesh her out as a character who experiences a lot of growth, but never ends up much closer to perfect or even to good (because I don’t think she’s good, I don’t really have any interest in redeeming her at all, though I think humanizing her or exploring the ways that she can be relatable is interesting). I think one thing they did really well in introducing her (and some of the others, obviously Fareeha is similar) is that she’s a person who’s had an entire life, a childhood and a young adulthood and is now a grown woman. I find that super helpful in thinking about what particular things make her immature when she’s first meeting McCree and starting the gang, and then how she addresses or doesn’t address those things as she gets older and has to adapt. I also like that she’s a criminal, clearly not a good guy character, but also doesn’t at this point have a direct tie to the Big Bad organization of the franchise - I’ve not shared many of my ideas for where my fic series is going, but I like the idea of her flat out refusing any/all offers from Talon to team up for several reasons. Like having Vishkar and Lumerico and even Volskaya as sort of villainous presences, keeping Deadlock and Talon separate helps the world feel less manichean/more realistic to me, so I actually hope there’s not a move to tie everyone together too neatly.

I also have NO desire to see her team up with Talon except maybe in selling Talon weapons or something. BUt that’s business, not teamwork. I see Ashe as left with basically a name of the Deadlock gang, but without anyone but BOB who REALLY has her corner. 

I do wish that the whole 'her parents ignored her entirely’ and 'she’s richer than god’ things had been considered a bit more in relation to one another - it doesn’t make any sense to me at all that her parents would continue to bankroll their at large criminal daughter that they don’t care about at all, for instance. My other major gripe with how she’s been handled is actually about her legendary skins - let her look like herself, Blizzard!! Let her have her white hair and red eyes instead of just blatantly embracing the fact that you made another same face white woman who you will play Barbie with and give her dark hair or blue eyes whenever it’s more convenient. Also make her look her age, damnit. 

You’re completely right and all of this is dumb. But I’m not shocked, tbh. LET OLDER WOMEN LOOK IT!!! LET WOMEN BE OLDER!!! 

ANYWAY, her origin story and Reunion give me a lot to work with. ESPECIALLY because I’m not at all convinced that Reunion is the first time she and McCree have seen each other since he left the gang, or at least I feel very strongly that it shouldn’t be the first time. There are a lot of things about how they both act that I’ve chosen to read as suggesting this is kind of a recurring thing, he shows up and makes her mad and messes with the gang but neither of them will actually hurt the other, and then she has to go back to acting like he’s her nemesis when really he’s the one person who can make her break her own rules about punishing betrayal. I’ve got no particular investment in Blizzard telling their stories that way, but to me it makes a lot more sense than that confrontation being their first meeting after 20 years.

I haven’t decided what I think about McCree and Ashe’s relationship in specific, only in broad strokes, and I chalk a lot of that up to my general reluctance to engage with Ashe and what Blizzard seems to be trying to do with her. I’ll have to come up with something, if only in passing, but yeah, I dunno. 

AND SPEAKING OF MCCREE. He’s so sad, I love him. While I don’t see him joining Talon usually, I definitely agree with you that he just kind of bounces around from group to group and place to place throughout his life, and to me that’s in part because I see him as just kind of taking things as they come at him, but also because he’s so deeply convinced of his own 'badness’ and guilt that, without someone else prompting him like Ashe or Gabe, he’ll just default to running on his own so as not to hurt or disappoint anyone, including himself. But even as he’s convinced that he’s not a truly good man, he still works to do the right thing in the ways he knows how and feels cut out for. And I love that he’s polite, and that he seems largely to be pretty unflappable but is willing to get angry and express that anger when something is important enough to warrant it, and also that he’s a fuckin terrible dresser. 

Yeah, I think McCree is a tumbleweed, and he’s always looking for something, and he never really quite finds it, at least not for a long time, Eventually, in the fullness of time, he becomes a sort of officer for Overwatch, in my world, but even there he feels that he is doing a good and useful thing but does he “fit”? Will he ever be settled like Pharah? Loved like Tracer? Who knows! Not him! He’s just a cat dad doing his best. 

Idk, I was skeptical of getting into a game that wasn’t first-and-foremost narrative driven, but I’ve found that many of the characters are set up in such a way that even though they’re not fully fleshed out, there’s a lot to work with that’s super interesting and fun to me, so Overwatch has been an incredibly pleasant surprise. I love others, too, but these two appeal directly to my two greatest weaknesses when it comes to fictional characters (bitter lesbian who yells and sweet guy who tries really hard to do the right thing even though he fucks up a lot because the world is complicated), and it’s very fortuitous that they’re actually linked to one another within the lore. If my faves were like, Zen and Reyes, for instance, I don’t think I’d be as jazzed about the franchise as I am. But I lucked out with these two losers, and as always I love the way that you’ve written McCree (can’t wait to see what you do with Ashe) so I’ve gladly incorporated fanon into my thoughts and feelings about him, so it’s kind of just been a perfect storm for me, and now here I am writing excessively long submissions to you about why I love them.

Yeah, I think it works out nicely when you find a character that the franchise loves too. I did not go into Overwatch expecting Tracer to be my favorite, not even remotely. I expected it would be Widowmaker, actually. But Tracer just got me, something about her sense of goodness without naivete, her courage and her brightness. She’s the hero with the strength to get up and still see that corner of blue in the sky. ANd then go shoot a man to keep it.