#empires smp analysis

[stellocchia]

Okay, wow. So. Joey definitely managed to get in contact with the witch council. Either that or they have another mole on the inside.

And I think that my theory of them being an extremely rigid cast system isn't wrong. Or doesn't seem to be.

After all, they didn't only cast Shelby out due to a mistake, they're also branding her as dangerous and sending dangerous creatures after her. But somehow, this person they're basically trying to murder, is still fit to serve under the "truly Great Witches"? Despite being highly dangerous according to them?

Really feels like a scare tactic to beat any rebellious witch into compliance. And Shelby, whether she admits it or not, is definitely a rebellious one.

[minecraftrelatedrandomness]

When Sausage asks the Empires incarnation of Grumbot whether their friends are safe, Grumbot replies with the message, "GRUMBOT FINDS NO PURPOSE IN THIS UNIVERSE." For some reason, the L.O.R.E team immediately conclude that the computer is going to destroy the Empires world, and make plans to stop Grumbot.

However, having context of Grumbot and his entire existence on his original Hermitcraft, it is easy to deduce why Grumbot would give such an answer at all: in Hermitcraft, Grumbot's purpose is to make MumboJumbo the mayor of the server. Since Mumbo did NOT pass through the Rift and therefore does not exist in the Empires world, of course Grumbot would say something like that, even if he does not answer Sausage's question.

[tinapaysmp]

The life series is starting again and I am very hype about it, but I've been making a bunch of Empire s1 headcanons and notes for the past week.

[allay-uxini]

So back in Empires season 1 when Sausage was starting to get possessed and corrupted by Xornoth he had that dramatic split from the Wither Rose Alliance which was when the roseblings felt Sausage was too far gone for saving. Then Sausage went back to Mythland and built these dark buildings which was meant to be big turning point in the narrative where Sausage has gone fully evil and there's no turning back with the buildings cementing that, and yet the buildings he decides to build are a tower and a blacksmith.

Let me repeat that again

The first thing Sausage did when he stopped being allies with the wizard and the tinker was build a tower and a blacksmith

Sausage never stopped loving those two, it's a shame they never realised that until it was too late.

[minecraftrelatedrandomness]

update: op stands corrected.

actually you know what REALLY funny that bits of lore from season one keep on being relevant but that one big piece of lore where there was this whole demon seems to just be. entirely irrelevant. joey’s weird villagers? relevant. pearl as a person? relevant. even stuff about the dragon dying? kind of relevant.

xonorth? bitch. entirely irrelevant. has had no affect on the current time whatsoever. it’s what he deserves <3

[fogwitchoftheevermore]

Yes! The ways the mechs and mcyt handle narrative have always been so similar to me but I've never been able to put it onto words. Would Love to hear what you have to say on the topic (after you have had a good sleep)

HI, it's time for me to get insane. Thank you for sending this ask cause now I have an excuse to maintag the post, lol. Also, I'm going to be using the term MCYT interchangeably with MCRP (Minecraft roleplay) for my own sanity. You'll know what I mean from context clues, I think.

So, hi, anyone who doesn't know about The Mechanisms. This post is going to be about some meta analysis tools that popped up in the Mechs fandom when it exploded in popularity back in 2020-2021. Due to the nature of both the Mechs and MCYT (which I'll get into in a moment), these concepts are generally very helpful for meta analysis of MCYT as well, and I think you guys would love them.

First of all, what was The Mechanisms?

The Mechanisms, originally known as Dr. Carmilla and The Mechanisms, was a band that formed in the late 2000s. It had a rotating cast of members, though most of the stuff you can easily find from them (such as their albums) was made when they had 8-9 consistent members. The Mechanisms officially released seven albums and one single before the band broke up in early 2020. The reason this band is similar at all to MCYT comes from a few things- the characters the band played, the stories the band told, and the archival aspect/age.

Because the Mechs were not a regular band, it was also a storytelling experience. Each Mechs album tells it's own self contained story (except for the Tales to be Told albums, which feature songs with their own stories that don't tie into the album at large). But furthermore, each Mechanism is a character. All the members of the band had characters they played, acting as a band of immortal space pirates moving through the galaxy on their ship, The Aurora.

The similarity to MCYT here is, of course, the characters. It's not always as simple to tell the difference between MCYT characters and actors as it was with The Mechanisms, seeing as (a lot of) MCYT doesn't start with the acting/roleplaying intention that the Mechs started with. But nonetheless, they share the understanding that even though this isn't a play or a TV show or whatever scripted medium, and that even though these characters (sometimes) share similar/the same names as their creators, they are, ultimately, characters the creators are putting on in order to tell a story. Whether that story is something more connected to the base characters (less roleplay heavy servers, Mechs backstory beats) or a story where the characters themselves are filling a role to tell a new story (more roleplay heavy servers, Mechs filling in for characters on the albums to tell their stories), there is always a story to be told.

There is also, as I said, the archival aspect. Archiving is massively important to both The Mechanisms and MCYT. It's definitely a lot harder with the Mechs than with most MCYT stuff, since the Mechs are a whole lot nicher, but that is not to say it's easy for either group. Archiving is vital to keeping both fanbases, and both sets of characters, alive, and there is only so much archiving you can rely on the creators of either to do. Those of you who take this task on are genuinely so awesome and I love you.

Alongside the archiving aspect (and as such, the lost media aspect), there's also the age of the Mechanisms, and (similarly to MCYT), the large number of people involved in the project, which results in lost and oftentimes conflicting canon beats. Mechs lore was not a strict, planned out thing. Large swaths of it were made up on the fly or forgotten down the line and rewritten or just made to work because the story needed it. As such, a lot of Mechanisms meta analysis had to reckon with the fact that the story was often telling you two or three or more things that could not be true at once nonetheless were, or was telling you something with the assumption that you knew something else, but that something else is now impossible to track down. So, sometimes, you just had to pick and choose, or try to reconstruct that lost knowledge. Similarly, varying POVs and gaps in time or gaps in story result in a similar concept for MCYT analysis- sometimes it doesn't really work if you take every piece of lore into account, so you just can't, even though every piece of lore is equally canon; or sometimes, a specific source is lost and you have to trust the memory of people who saw or were involved in the source instead.

Now, what is narratomancy? And how is it relevant to meta analysis of MCYT?

Narratomancy is the name for a few concepts of meta analysis that popped up when the Mechs fandom exploded in 2020-2021. The term was coined by @lucky-sevens (who, unlike anyone else I bring up in this post, I feel comfortable tagging because they're inactive, lol, so this won't clog their notifs), but the credit for various concepts under the umbrella of narratomancy can go to a ton of people. Personally, I'm going to be heavily referencing one post in particular by @/gunpowderedtim when it comes to the four main pillars of narratomancy, and how they are relevant here. (BTW I know OP of that post has shifted at least a bit to the MCYT fandom as well, so if you see this and would like me to tag you properly, please let me know!)

(EDIT: I was informed in the replies that lucky-sevens did not, in fact, coin this phrase, but they can't remember who specifically did. Alas another Mechs thing lost to time.)

Narratomancy refers to the general concept of the narrative as a thing within the Mechs universe. The narrative, a story that wants to be told, is an (at least semi) sentient creature that is bending the universe to its will in order to be told. This living narrative helps to explain and work through some of the problems or plot holes in the narrative, and understanding this helps a lot for meta analysis, or even just understanding the story. As stated above, I'm going to be breaking down four main pillars that the post above identified, and how they may be relevant to MCYT meta analysis. Not all of them are going to work- these were concepts made up for The Mechanisms, after all, and for all their similarities, it's not a perfect 1 to 1. Let's get into it!

Pillar 1: Universal Story

This is a pillar that has one really important and relevant concept, but I do have to bend a bit of it in order to make it work. Namely, what we're calling "the universe" here. But it's still quite important. You'll see.

As mentioned up top, The Mechanisms were originally called Dr. Carmilla and The Mechanisms. Dr. Carmilla (both the character and the creator) eventually left the Mechs to do her own thing, tell her own story, but the story of the universe at large is still hers. She's still got her name in the title, she's still the one who created the original lore, so to the universe, she's still the main character. She might not be the main character of any given story, even any given story she participates in, but it's all her universe in the end. As such, both her stories and the stories of The Mechanisms are canon, but they might not be strictly canon to each other. Because ultimately, The Mechanisms were the universe's vessel for telling stories, and sometimes the stories they told made for a weird concoction of conflicting canon, so you just had to accept that these conflicting canon beats were both canon, but which one was canon depended entirely on which story you were looking at, which one was trying to be told, who that story specifically was about (this is a concept that'll come up again later).

The reason this is a bit less relevant to MCYT in that, if a roleplay server is being well run, you (hopefully) won't have a main character in this way. And even if you do, that main character is not always going to be the creator of the server/universe, ala Carmilla. But again, it's not irrelevant, because I think this can be applied when you're looking at individual POVs of any given event or server.

Every character is the main character of their own POV, even if they might not be the main character of any given story beat or event. They have their own lore and story to tell in that POV, and when you sit down to watch their POV that is the story you'll get. It just so happens that said story might have things that are canon to it that are not canon to other POVs, that cannot be canon to other POVs, and you as the fan have to reckon with that. Sometimes these things might be small or not something that's gonna really throw you, like the conflicting Magic Mountain lore in this season of Hermitcraft. Other times, these might be really big things, like Martyn's Watcher lore in the Life Series.

But either way, while the idea that there is a Universal Story that has a clear main character doesn't really apply to servers, it certainly ties in to the idea of POVs. And furthermore, the "all of these stories are canon, but not strictly canon to each other" idea that comes along with Universal Story is a really vital thing to keep in mind when it comes to MCYT.

Pillar 2: Casting Call (Narrative Role Filling)

There are two main parts to Casting Call. The first is that The Mechanisms have a role in the stories they tell, even the stories that are not their own, like the album ones. These roles are often trope heavy, or based on pre-existing characters that the Mechanisms themselves have similarities too. The second is that the Mechanisms slot into these roles not necessarily because they want to, but because they have to in order to make the story work. Because the narrative wants them to help the story along to the ending.

This is definitely more relevant in roleplay heavy servers, but it still comes up on just about every server out there. While for the Mechanisms, the divide is between "the character I am" vs. "the character I am playing so the story gets told", the divide for MCYT tends to be a bit more "the person I am" vs. "the character I am playing so the story gets told". This divide (and people's inability to understand it) is the reason why MCYTs so often have to give the "Remember, we're all friends in real life and anything that the others weren't comfortable with wouldn't be in the videos" disclaimer. Everyone involved in this story is playing a character to move the story along, and that character may be totally removed from their real life person (such as Scott playing Xornoth in ESMP s1) or pretty similar to their real life person, but dialed up so they can tell a story, get a reaction (I don't know any of these people in real life, so I can't confidently pin someone down for this, but you get what I'm talking about).

Regardless, there is a story to be told, even if that story isn't thought out in advance, and that requires people playing the villain or the damsel in distress or the knight in shining armor sometimes in order to get it done. And, tying back into Universal Story, who is playing which of these roles can change as the canon of each POV changes (such as in Third Life, where who is filling the "villain" role depends entirely on which POV you're watching).

Pillar 3: Story Echoes

Story Echoes are a very Mechanisms based concept, because unlike everything else here, they are explicitly canon. This concept refers to the fact that The Mechanisms' stories "echo" throughout the universe, or repeat over and over again. It's in different places and different times, but these stories are out there, over and over again.

This one can apply to MCYT, but I have to admit, it's a stretch and a half. Ultimately, the way this applies here is in the fact that there's no such thing as an original story. Every story borrows from or is inspired by or is similar to another story out there. It's the nature of story telling. The first example for MCYT that comes to mind is fan Life Series, stories that take the mechanics of the Life Series but put them somewhere else, somewhen else, with someone else. However, Story Echoes are explicitly the same story repeating over and over again, which isn't really the case with this example. As I said, it's a stretch, but I didn't want to skip over this pillar entirely.

Pillar 4: Narrative Imperative

And the final pillar, Narrative Imperative, also referred to as Narrative Flow. Despite this one also being explicitly canon to The Mechanisms, it is also very relevant to MCYT, and in my opinion, the most important concept on this list for MCYT meta.

Narrative Imperative is explicitly canon in the Mechs universe when it comes to how The Mechanisms heal from injuries or death. As discussed in this post from the official Mechanisms tumblr, that healing factor functions at "whatever speed the story wants it to". This concept of "sometimes stuff just happens because it must for the story, even if it doesn't make sense or actively contradicts previously established canon" has been brought up before when we were discussing Universal Story, in respect to lore, to roleplay based story beats, for both groups. Here, it's more discussing a fact of the universe at large, a fact of how the Mechanisms function. And while the general concept of Narrative Imperative can be applied to literally any conflicting lore thing in any MCYT server or story (it's flexible in that way), I think it works best when talking about how game mechanics tie into the story.

What does death mean for this character? What does death mean for this character when on this specific server? What does death mean for this character on this specific server in this specific moment? What does logging off mean for this character, on this server, in this moment? What does voice mod or discord calls or chat mean to this character? What do skin changes mean? What does the Player Heads mod mean? What does sleep mean?

There are a million mechanics you can ask these questions about, and you can get a million different answers to each of them. Death can and does mean wildly different things on different servers (see: a Hardcore series like Naked and Afraid versus Hermitcraft). But it can also mean wildly different things on the same server to the same character at different points in time (see: the concept of "canon lives" on DSMP). Death, and numerous other game mechanics, mean whatever the hell the story (and the universe and creators involved) wants them to mean. You just have to take it in stride, the rules aren't clear because if they were, there wouldn't be enough freedom to tell a story.

Even on servers where it seems like the rules are clear, like the Life Series or other death games, death doesn't always mean what the rules say it does. Take glitch deaths, for example, like Loony's (almost) glitched death in season 1 of Deceit SMP. He glitched into a wall and should have died, but Legundo was allowed to cheat (use creative) to save him, or, had he died, been allowed to use cheats to bring him back, for fairness' sake. But this doesn't only apply to glitches- take one of Scar's off camera deaths in Third Life. I don't have the source for when Martyn talked about this on hand, but Martyn has mentioned that Scar technically died earlier in Third Life, when Martyn just snapped one day when Scar provoked him, killing Scar in a short, boring fight. There was nothing technically illegal or unfair about that kill, like with a glitched death, but when all was said and done, everyone agreed it just sort of... felt bad. That it didn't feel like a good story. So, the death was overturned, and the server went on as usual. The rules may have been clear here, but sometimes rules get in the way of a good story, so they're disregarded, simple as that.

MCYT stories are not being told in spite of their medium but in harmony with them. And as such, that means that sometimes, the narrative rules above all, and narrative imperative says that this mechanic is going to work like this, at least for now, at least for me. It might not ever work like that again, for me or for anyone else on the server, but it works like that in this moment, so you take it as is.

So, yeah, there's my essay! My final thoughts: Go listen to The Mechanisms. Go listen to Maki Yamazaki (Dr. Carmilla). I hope you enjoy these four concepts and keep them in mind when you are analyzing or playing the space of MCRP, because I think they are really helpful things to keep in mind. Have a good one.

[voidnoidoid]

Jimmy, aka Tumble Town's Outlaw (+ rambly character progression analysis and stuffs)

my take on Jimmy's villain arc is that instead of trying to reclaim his role as Sheriff, he should instead become the most feared outlaw the empires have ever seen.

old timey sheriffs often toed the line between justice and crime, and Jimmy has made it clear he's not above some corruption: bribery, stealing, manipulation, shady deals, arson etc. He's not the pillar of justice and upholder of the law he makes himself out to be. Hell he doesn't even follow his own laws sometimes and he let Scar break all of them! So why not turn to crime and vengeance?

recently I read an article about Kid Curry, a notorious outlaw of the Wild West, and I thought hey, what if Jimmy's character went in that direction? (PG-13 of course cmon) He could have a cool nickname like Dynamite Jim or something. Another thing I noticed is that Jimmy doesn't use a gun, saying that he is averse to using that kind of weapon, despite most cowboys carrying some form of firearm on them. He prefers to use a bow and arrow and his lasso. Could it be that he's used a gun before? Anyway I think it would a real turning point in his character arc for him to start using a gun, and ironically name it the Peacemaker (after the colt single action army revolver)

I find the Sheriff turned Outlaw story really compelling given what we know of Jim's character so far. Other people have brought this point up but Jimmy's whole character seems to tie in with themes of isolation and loneliness. Tumble Town doesn't have any villagers or custom citizens anywhere. The saloon is empty and devoid of any beverages. It's just Jimmy and his horses around here. Almost as if Tumble Town is completely deserted.

We don't know anything about Jimmy's life before he became the self-proclaimed Sheriff, but I assume his life before that wasn't a happy one. Why else would he crave respect so desperately, unless he wasn't afforded any before? He hates being seen as powerless and lesser than, as being called a toy is very much a soft spot for him. Him shrinking down in size and having his peers literally and metaphorically look down on him isn't helping either. From the beginning, Jimmy was never one to be taken seriously, as he was a goofy, good-natured man who kind of bumbled into being a Sheriff.

He demanded respect by imposing his laws upon every empire, despite not really having any right to do so other than being "The Sheriff". He is the leader of Tumble Town, not the whole 12 empires after all. Jim didn't really do much to show that he deserved the kind of authoritative respect he wanted from everyone, but the other rulers still liked having him around. People he considered allies such as Gem, Sausage and FWhip treated him nicely for a time, but either tolerated his Sheriff playacting and/or made fun of him by playing into the whole Toy Story bit. They were his "friends" but didn't give him respect as Sheriff and as a person.

For the majority of empires Jimmy has been treated as lesser than, as someone who isn't even human. He wasn't given basic respect asa a person. Joel outright mocked Jimmy by calling him a toy to his face, and every single person who has interacted with Jimmy has engaged in the toy bit. Hell, his own deputies, FWhip AND Scar, didn't treat him like an equal.

FWhip became deputy for his own gain and wore the toy story alien uniform to subtly make fun of Jimmy without him knowing. He did get attached to Jimmy though and took it extremely personally when he got fired for disrespecting Jimmy, getting back at him by stealing the hat and badges. I do think c!FWhip took it too far and is basically an embittered ex.

Scar on the other hand, was extremely nice to Jimmy and literally built him an entire train and a bunch of buildings as well as setting up villager trading posts for him. It's a really kind and generous thing to do for Jimmy, but despite that he still doesn't respect him in the way Jim wants him to. He gave Jim a whole pep talk about how "being Woody is a good thing" which, while being very sweet and encouraging, also unconsciously reinforces the fact that Scar DOES see Jimmy as a toy just like the rest of Empires. And when Scar was imprisoned by Jimmy for like 10 seconds, he threatened to call Jimmy a toy to get himself out of jail.

Alright fast forward to present time. Jimmy meets the Old/Past Sheriff and learns more about being a real sheriff. He learns how to get people to respect him more and is really excited to have a mentor figure, especially someone who used to be a real Sheriff running a town. Excitedly, he calls his friends over to the great bridge, riding atop a horse, to share about the cool thing that happened to him. Notice Gem, Sausage and FWhip are all wearing the Dawn Sunglasses, and Jimmy isn't, which creates this feeling that Jimmy is an "other" and not part of the in group. Instead of listening and congratulating him, all three of them crouch and poke fun at him for being small. Jimmy is all too aware of how everybody is treating him. He promises to be a better man, a better Sheriff they can all be proud of. And so he begs them, "so do you guys finally respect me now?"

Do you see me for who I am?

Will you finally see me as your equal?

Your friend?

And he is shot dead.

They've made their point loud and clear, and Jimmy has had enough. No more playing games. If they refuse to respect him, he will make them fear.

[convexicalcrow]

Does Scar also have a possession kink? I read your 'Old Habits' and just... Im thinking they both are whores for it. lol

I mean... yes and no. They are both whores for it but for different reasons. They get different things out of it. Yes, because possession is the vehicle by which they become full Vexes and access their powers. Scar wouldn't be so possessive of his Vex head if he wasn't into it. But there's more to it than that.

To me, what makes me say Cub has a possession kink is that for him, it's all about the lack of power, the giving up of control to a higher being or authority. It's about willingly giving your body to Something Else to use as It sees fit. (Or unwillingly, as was the case with the skulk.) It's like being in a 24/7 total power exchange/TPE relationship, to borrow some BDSM language. Cub's not in charge, because he doesn't want to be; he just does what he's told, and he's fine with that.

And ofc Scar does have that to a certain extent, because he does place the Vex as a higher authority. He still has his Vex head that he's so possessive about, he has the giant Vex head in Scarland, the Evoker in Main Street, he won't kill Vexes beause he's Not Allowed To, it's there. He's willing to serve and embrace the Vex and give them a presence in Scarland.

But to me, this isn't about Scar giving himself over to the Vex in the way Cub does. To me, this is a show of power. It's signposting what he is, what power he has access to, who he is. Scar is a Vex, and you can't go to Scarland without being able to see that. It's a threat, and a reminder, that the ConVex never went away. ConCorp didn't die at the end of s6 with Scar on his diamond throne. That lore never ended. It wasn't like wizard Scar or tycoon Scar or Elf Scar or any of the other various characters Scar has played over the years. They come and go, but Vex Scar is forever.

Contrast that with how Cub leans into it, but he isn't building Vex shrines in his base, he's not having Evokers everywhere, it's not something he shows off, because that's not who Cub is. With Cub, you don't know what's hit you until it's too late. You never see it coming. Things seem normal... until they really aren't, and you can't remember how we got here, but that's what's happened.

Like, when the crossover happened, Cub hid one (1) skulk catalyst under the sheep/cow/animal farm at the Hermit base on the first day for shits and giggles, and that seemed fine. Talked about building a cake empire. Sure, why not? Built a house out of blocks from every empire, which was a nice touch. Becomes a monster slayer bc why not and also cool giant battle axe. And then all of a sudden, ya boi decides to go into a swamp and get his ass possessed, and starts pranking hard for a couple of weeks before finally getting cured and escaping back through the rift. Like. LIKE. IT WAS LIKE FIVE WEEKS. ALL OF THAT HAPPENED IN LIKE FIVE WEEKS. There's no way we could have predicted ANY OF THAT given where we started. Especially given it was his idea. Just go to another server and get posssessed for Lore Reasons nbd. Lore that Shubble also took on as well later on in her series when she got skulk possessed while Supreme was around. Lore that Cub still leans into even now, which makes me see him as serving both the Vex and skulk, since he hasn't just left the skulk lore behind either. It's left residue that he isn't interested in dropping.

(as an aside, I find it SO INTERESTING that of all the character lore Cub has, there's nothing for the old man -> young Cub transition. He just entirely changed his default skin bc he wanted to at the start of s8 and left it at that. Which is fine! You do you, Cub. But you better believe I'm gonna fill that lore gap if he won't. XD)

Meanwhile, Scar was hanging out at Tumble Town, and having a lovely time of it which included building trains and Western-style buildings and ponderosa pine trees and not getting possessed by swamp skulk. SEE. IT'S NOT HARD CUB I PROMISE.

So yes, Scar has a possession kink, but it's nothing like Cub's. For Cub, he serves the Vex (and the skulk); for Scar, the Vex serve him.

[minecraftrelatedrandomness]

tags from op:

#theres just so much to unpack from that action alone #like yes yes obviously the logic stands up of ‘well its dangerous to have it just sitting around’ #but a) by that logic he should be wearinf the antlers all the time #and b) as far as he’s aware theres Probably not going to be anyone trying to steal it#or at least- he could just hide it better away underground— ilike where he found the antlers #so really it could be a Lot of reasons #i just think one of them is ‘dear god this is the only way he could imagine being close to his brother again’

can you IMAGINE being a citizen of rivendell right now? like yes our sovereign DID MAYBE KINDA put his brother in his necklace and now carries him around all the time like a rich person and their purse puppy but like its fine! we’re making a cod sanctuary :D!

[simple-seranade]

which empires smp characters i project onto think should have religious trauma

both season one and season two because i think about this wayyyyyyy too much lol

so, without further ado:

Xornoth

this one is probably the most obvious of the bunch i’m going to list? imagine. you grow up learning about a pair of beings, one benevolent and one malicious. you praise the light and shun the dark, as all your family does. then, it’s revealed that you and your brother are part of a prophecy. the two deities you worship? yeah, they force siblings to be their champions, a fate that only ends in both their deaths. if they don’t, everything is destroyed. not only you have to perish, but so does your brother, who you care deeply about, because you’re kids.

that is already a lot to take in. what kind of god who loves you would force you to die? but then, you get told that you’re not even that. you aren’t the chosen of the light. you’re a child of the dark, and they immediately treat you as such. no matter how much you plead and pray, all they do is shake their heads and declare you too far gone. the god you worshipped hates you, and the evil you were taught to fear has claimed you as his own and you will never escape, instead doing everything you swore you would never do.

yeah. xornoth definitely has some trauma. but they’re not the only one, because…

Scott of Rivendell

yeah neither of the princes were getting out of this one unscathed.

the same things i said about xornoth apply, except everything changes. the people hail you as the one who will save them when the time comes, the one who will defeat the horrible evil. the evil who tucks you in when your parents are busy. the evil who plays tag with you in the palace halls and has snowball fights with you. the evil you call your sibling.

you don’t get to be a kid, because your god has chosen you to die. you don’t get a choice, but you’re hailed with the highest honor. you should be grateful, they say. but you don’t want the honor. you want peace. you want to not carry the world on your shoulders.

you want your sibling.

yeah being lifted up by a church can be just as damaging as being shunned by it, and we got both ends of the spectrum here! congrats, rivendell twins, now go get some therapy while we move onto…

Sausage of Sanctuary

sausage’s trauma is… different.

sausage has plenty of reason to be shaky in faith. his village was destroyed, he meets someone who looks exactly like the one he worships. it’s enough to shake anyone’s faith. is your god on that can respond? if so then why hasn’t she? you’ve been so faithful, so why are you hurting?

sausage’s trauma is less a direct result of the church and more of the terrifying ordeal of doubt. how dare you doubt that santa pearla is real and good. how dare you lose faith for even an instant. getting his memories back helps, but there’s still the nagging feeling he gets that he’s horrible for doubting that which brings so much joy. the voice hurts. praying sometimes hurts.

but something sets sausage apart.

sausage still believes. that’s a constant, no matter the hurt he suffers, he believes in Santa Pearla. he says his prayers, revels in her peace as he’s presented every reason not to. even after getting his memories back, his church stands. yeah, pearl was pretty powerful (oli has called her god before) but it’s… different. it’s faith. even though he knows he knows her, instead of being shaken, he’s solidified in it. because the world is good. santa pearla is good. people are good. he puts his hope in the good, even in the bad.

guess which one of these is most projecty lol

so yeah take my random ramblings about how different characters have religious trauma because i wanted to. sausage probably makes the least sense but i swear my brain has more reasons that don’t translate to words.

[becca4leafclover]

What if Joel is the same Joel from S1, via reincarnation. He's the only one to directly reincarnate that way though- all the others are more or less coincidences

Why?

When S1! Joel and Lizzie were married and found out Lizzie is a god, they did some research in figuring out how to move forward. Immortality is definitely something that could get in the way of a relationship, after all.

And what they found, was a spell to make a mortal INTO an immortal after death.

They decided to do it, so when Joel inevitably died as a mortal, they could then be together forever.

But well...

No one expected Lizzie to die first.

Joel forgot about the immortality spell by the time he died, many many years after the Rapture.

And when he awoke later, surrounded by gods he did not know, being told he had to play a part, all he could think of were the two gods he knew before that held no place in this pantheon and seemed to have been scrubbed from the history books.

Maybe Joel was the only god to survive of this pantheon is because he was never a part of that pantheon to begin with.

While he begins anew, his heart is always aching for people long gone. He will never get his wife, or any other Emperor back as they should be.

(Maybe that's why he listens more attent to Sausage's enthusiastic ramblings of his culture, because he knew the one once called Saint Pearl as an ally.)

(Maybe that's why he feuds with the Sheriff, for claiming the name his best friend once wore and using it for the worst. You are a toy with the way you play with morals like a game. )

(Maybe that's why he teases Lizzie, Mayor of Animalia. Silly cat, why are you so small? You should be big and tall and not afraid of water. I get my best traits from you.)

(Maybe we never should have tried to change fate.)

[stellocchia]

I really like the idea of Jimmy really being some kind of living doll specifically because of how much I liked Scar's speech about how "Woody doesn't define you, you define you".

Something about a character deciding to define himself in spite of the limitations his body gives him is personally appealing.

Because, even if he IS just an animated piece of fabric that doesn't make him any more of a toy than anyone else is, he's still Jimmy. Still the sheriff. Still HIM.

I love that.

[minecraftrelatedrandomness]

Wait a second. I am rereading and editing the ESMP TV Tropes pages and suddenly realized: e1!Sausage doesn’t exist in e1!Scott’s afterlife. I know we’ve joked about love triangles being the cause of this, but considering e2!Sausage’s recent lore, I think we have an alternate theory:

I’ve heard there were implications that e1!Scott’s afterlife ends up being the general afterlife for all ESMP S1 characters, at least according to a livestream after the season ended. I don’t know how reliable this is, but if this is indeed the case, I am quite sure of why e1!Sausage didn’t exist in that afterlife.

It’s quite simple: he went to a different afterlife. Pearl’s Afterlife, and later, the ALSMP: he never actually died, after all, he was rejuvenated in Pearl’s realm and sent down to ALSMP as an amnesiac.

At no point would he have any reason to set foot in e1!Scott’s afterlife, nor would he have the time to do so, based on e2!Sausage’s past-life memories as his E1/ALSMP counterpart.

It all adds up now.

[syn4k]

seriously though as much as i love writing so much angst out of s1 pix this man is also just a chill unruffled guy at heart. his first interaction with the demon is "dude, i love your Venom cosplay" and when the demon is like "what the fuck is that" he's immediately like "...not a comics fan, then? alright i can roll with that" and then does. you can very clearly tell that behind the character he's just straight vibing. honestly, s1 c!pix is good for analyzing what's wrong with this poor desert man but s2 pix is clearly more comfortable in his role in the lore and it's awesome to see both ways :]

[umbrify]

i have indeed found that you do timestamps for all your meta and i am utterly delighted by this. since i do very much want to know more of your jimmy thoughts, can i ask about what you think of him in season 1 specifically? (you're free to pick whatever subtopic to discuss here that you like, but i'm especially curious what you find most compelling about his relationship with fwhip and how that compares to what they're like in season 2?)

Oh gosh— uh, y’know, you’ve picked an area of Jimmy here that I’m much less knowledgeable in. I’m still in the process of watching season one back— I only got into empires at the start of season two— and I don’t know enough to really have super informed analysis on e1 Jimmy.

I’ll give you some thoughts anyway, based on what I know, but I can’t really do my usual timestamps for this one. Take this more as my general musing about these characters, based on what I know, instead of making some sort of proper point here. Does that make sense?

I will say, I find it fascinating how his character seemed to have turned out so differently in season one. The Codfather seems a lot more… confident? Supported? He’s got people in his corner, and he basically always did. He seems to have that same sort of demand for respect— how he demands people be sacrificed before they can join his alliance— yet… people do it? People will make that sacrifice for him, and they’ll give him that undying loyalty, and I just have to wonder like… what’s different here? It’s the same core character trait, and yet the end result is wildly different. He’s very much a character shaped by his environment.

A friend and I, in our process to understand more about some empires characters, have been looking for their… narrative through line, so to speak. The core trait that these characters carry across seasons. We have them for fWhip and Scott, but we’ve been struggling with Jimmy. What is his core trait, if he even has one? He seems to have one, but I’m just not quite sure what it is. It seems like the difference between e1 and e2 Jimmy, is that e1 Jimmy had the support that e2 Jimmy craved. Yet, I feel like e2 Jimmy did a lot more… shoving people away. But, I can’t say for sure. The differences are interesting to me, need to study e1 Jimmy more.

As for him and fWhip, god they are so much. Jimmy starts it both times, though in season one, he started it with Sausage first, which, I can’t find the exact moment in episode this happened— I didn’t take notes on season one— but I have found an instance of Sausage mentioning that Jimmy stole from him first: Sausage season one episode 14, 8:24. Jimmy insists that Sausage said it was okay, but he says that Jimmy took more than they agreed. This initial conflict with Mythland is what eventually led to the trench being created between Mythland and the Codlands, which is what set the WRA against the Cod Alliance.

But, the point is, that Jimmy and fWhip were never able to be friends. They were neutral at best before the Cod Wars, and then they were enemies up until almost the very end. And when they finally, finally started being friendly again, well.

“The resolution of a neverending feud will cause unimaginable chaos that will destroy the world.”

A destiny told in the stars themselves. These two could never be meaningful friends. fWhip and Jimmy, trying to right past wrongs and reforge the Codfather head, it destroyed the world.

It wasn’t their fault. It was never their fault. How could they have known? There’s no way they could’ve known. Yet, the universe was destined to rip them apart before they could ever be something. Before they could ever be any more than enemies.

Isn’t that just so much? Destined to always be on the fringes of each other’s spheres, destined to be forever enemies, forever apart. Even in season two, their friendship was short lived, torn apart.

And the universe said you are alone. And the universe said you are separate from every other thing.

I think about them a lot.

[theminecraftbee]

So False is sitting, and there's a potion she doesn't know how she knows the ingredients to in a cauldron to the side, and downstairs she can hear that guy she hired in exchange for room and board snoring, and outside it's dark, and inside it's light, and there's a blood-red sign above her telling her to run away, she's the evil one, run away, and -

Right. Think about it. Her head hurts. She opened a chest and took a trident with her name on it that she's increasingly suspecting isn't actually hers and she looked at a map, and her head hurts. And her memories hurt. And she can't sleep. And she wants to remember.

(And she doesn't. She doesn't, she doesn't, she doesn't, she needs to. It's a process. Her dreams hurt.)

And she's standing there, and she's thinking, and the air smells a little like gunpowder, because the guy she'd hired already had more rockets than he had any right to, right, and he'd given her a book telling her that the person in the tower she didn't build was her in different clothes and they're watching her, they're going to hurt her, except maybe False is going to hurt them, it's not clear, and she's fine, she's good, she is, except her memories hurt and her sword is bloody and she cleaned out blood that had soaked straight through the mattress of her inn the other day and -

Sometimes, False is tired. Sometimes, she wants to look at these people who have been nice to her (and have yet to admit what they want and/or don't know what she is), and look at them and their arguments, and she wants to ask them:

Do you know what it feels like to be afraid?

Not just like - she's witnessed the others get startled. She vaguely remembers the sound of that archeologist mourning losing something he cared about, and that's similar, but - that's not what she means. That's temporary. That's not -

There's a type of being afraid that False is. She's been it since she woke up. It's the kind that sinks into your bones. And after a little bit, you get used to it, right? You get used to it, because it's always there. Except you don't get less afraid; you get better at ignoring being afraid. You get better at ignoring it right up until someone does something that reminds you how afraid you are, and it all comes crashing down on you at once, and then everything goes kinda fuzzy, and it's hard to remember when you are. That kind of afraid.

There's a type of being afraid that - the thing is you don't really live with it, because you can't, but you do, because you have to. And you know there's a reason you're afraid. False knows there's a reason she's afraid. But you aren't quite sure you remember the right reason. False isn't quite sure she knows what she's afraid of. And besides, even if you - she - False did, it wouldn't matter.

Because being afraid makes everything, like the fireflies outside and the stranger she hired snoring downstairs and there's a potion she shouldn't know the recipe for and she wonders if the False that her spy had reported is up in that tower, watching her, she's watching her, and her memories hurt. She hurts. She remembers what bruises feels like.

She thinks maybe she's running away.

She thinks maybe she's just -

She wants to ask the world if they know what it's like to be afraid, is all. To be afraid, and not know what you're afraid of. To be afraid, and finally remembering what's so scary.

She thinks maybe, if they could answer that, they'd understand. Maybe after that she'd be less frightened.

Or maybe there's no fixing it.

She hates that she left herself that sign in red; she wishes she could dream without waking up in pain; she, she, she doesn't know how to not be scared, and it's probably reasonable, so she won't ask for that not to be the case, and she'll keep her supply of hydrogen peroxide fresh for anymore mattresses she'll have to clean before it's over, and she'll dream, and maybe one day she'll wake up, and outside it is dark, and she is not asleep yet.

Somewhere in-between, she is. That's how it's always been, since the first time she woke up where she hadn't been the night before. Somewhere in-between.

And afraid, of course.

(She can't forget that.)