#i need to like. make a character design thing but for creepers. i feel like a lot of docs design comes from my creepers design

[niftukkun]

docm design notes now that i finally settled on a design

[sk3tch404]

Yandere Weeping Clown Thoughts!!

CW: Nothing too bad, just your usual creeper, manipulation, and analysis(?) on his character. Tbh hes so yandere coded that everything blurs together atp (and I'm using "yandere coded" sort of loosely bc that makes me sound like a yandere enabler or smth, which like, lol no but in fiction yeah funne). Called him Joker bc it was easier to use/remember than Weepy, and also bc they called them that in all the lore drop so 🤷‍♀️

A/n: Just saw the new Hullabaloo lore drop and IDV has taken me back into its clutches. He is so yandere material 🫶 Proof read enough to go "that's postable."

Joker is quite sensitive to his darlings perception of him. He always tries to do the right thing, tries to please you so that when you smile at him, that strangely unfamiliar warmth spreads through his chest. A smile tugging on the corners of his mouth, stringing his lips up as if he were a puppet. And a puppet of your design he shall be if you wished it so.

Joker is definitely a worshipping sort of yandere. He'll do most of anything for his darling if it made them just a teeny bit closer. Any progress is better than no progress. Even if it means visiting you in the dead of night to "check on you," or often "bumping into you" in places that you frequent at the manor. He'll stop bothering you if you reject his advances, but he'll come back around sooner or later. Joker doesn't want you to hate him, but he also doesn't want to be away from you! Although you may say some hurtful things like, "It's making me uncomfortable, sorry," or, "Can you leave me alone for a while," he knows deep down that if he teeters around the boundaries you set for long enough, he can wiggle his way through and to your heart. At least, that's what he hopes.

Despite his subservient nature to his darling, Joker isn't so obedient around others. He has his more introverted traits for sure, but his sensitivity to anger is fragile, especially when it comes to you. Joker doesn't have many qualms about taking a stand for you or himself if it came to it. He wants to be your protector, so he isn't very afraid to say something if he feels the need to. It can become quite the scene if the other party doesn't back down, making either you or someone else the mediator of the debacle. It's exhausting to have to manage your persistent follower, but it's better to handle a situation rather than let it spiral out of control, leaving the consequences of his mental break to you.

With his fragility also comes his keen eye for any chances to take advantage of a situation. Joker isn't very intimidating physically or feared for being calculating, but he is usually dismissed, and that makes for perfect cover if he plays his cards right. Framing people for his crimes can be a walk in the park depending on the situation, and manipulating those weaker than him isn't something he wholeheartedly takes pride in, but if it's for you, if it's for you, the singular most important person and one he adores most in his rotten life, then he's happy to oblige. If it wins you over in the end, then that's all that matters, right?

Joker will try to convince his darling to stay by his side and will get more desperate depending on the circumstances. He's not a kidnapper type, more of an idealist. Not to confuse that with delusional though. Joker knows full well how you probably feel about your strained relationship, but if he doesn't try now, he'll never get to be with you, and that's unacceptable. He wants to live a romantic and sweet life with you day in and day out, so he'd hate to see you miserable and locked up. If he can't love you the way he wants to, then what would be the point?

Even with that, Joker isn't above guilt tripping or petty manipulation tactics like that. He really can be unpredictable at times and can become very dangerous if his darling constantly shows no interest. Although he is a romantic idealist in his mind with you, he's also the type to slip into the "if I can't have you, no one can" mentality. He might just end up hurting his darling, but it won't be anything too drastic by the time it happens. Joker would feel terrible, terrified, and utterly disgusted with himself after seeing your petrified state. He'd drop to his knees and attempt to mutter consoling words, somewhat even begging for your forgiveness.

"Y- Y/n, no, oh no, no... Y/n, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please. Don't cry, I didn't mean to. I truly am sorry. I had just- I wasn't thinking straight. I would never hurt you. If only you hadn't done this, then... No, just come back to me Y/n."

He is still quite demanding even while apologizing, which would make your fear even greater. Joker doesn't want to force his darling's hand, but if it really came down to it, he'd give his darling a grade A verbally manipulative beat down. He'll use anything and everything against you so that all else but him looks ugly in that moment. Sure being at the receiving end of his unstable anger was horrifying, but be honest with yourself, were it not for him who has saved you countless times in both matches and inside the manor, you would be long dead by now. Anything is on the table, anything just so you will come back to him once more. He has little to no guilt in it, just the fear that he will seriously break if you're still in a right state of mind. So, in turn, he'll unfortunately have to break you first.

[kingscourthouse]

hold up i NEED to know more about your Xisuma Views thing.... I just saw the art with Joel and i'm obsessed

Well it's just how it sounds, it's Xisuma's view of the world. Unlike other players, he can't see the layers they have to hide.

Lemme put it like this. You're making a minecraft skin and have your second layer, yeah? That's their base layer. And then there's a second layer that's more heavily concealing.

Xisuma isn't from minecraft and his code is glitched, so not only do layers not work for him, but he can't see the layers either. Some people use only base layers to hide "actual forms" if they have one, and others use a second layer to hide scars or parts of their body that don't need a heavy cover.

So Xisuma sees people in a bit of a weird way. He thinks how he sees people is how everyone sees eachother. He sees their true character.

Skizz is a really nice guy. He's always looking out for people, tries to be there for someone, some people say he acts like an angel.

And so Xisuma never questions it. He sees Skizz as an angel, other people supposedly see him as an angel. Skizz is just an angel, why would anyone see anything else? It's just Skizz.

Though the Skizz people actually see is his layers with the torn suit and brown hair. The layers also affect his interactions with people too. If he's around Skizz, he tends to squint alot or avoid looking in his direction if he's not in his armour. Skizz is blinding to Xisuma, so he has trouble looking at him. Though Skizz does have features, but he's too bright to see any of them.

Xisuma also has a type of layer as well, but it's not on him. He's too broken in the games code (that's a whole 'nother can of worms) for him to use layers. So what does he do? He adds a layer to everyone else.

Xisuma doesn't leave hermitcraft too often, so everyone outside it will see what he really looks like. In the server though? Everyone has a layer that covers Xisuma from their eyes. He's lucky his admin panel isn't from minecraft or else he'd be screwed.

What's fun with Xisuma seeing people's real forms is that (in my au at least) he's kind of a grey character. If there's ever a fight or spat between hermits, he can have trouble taking sides. Not all Hermits are angelic or aliens like Skizz and Joel. There's hermits who are monsters and beings who do or did bad things in the past. Not all Hermits talk about those things.

He can get better insights to people's decisions or just things about them. Joel has a habit to make things around bright areas or access to a lot of light. Maybe because he's made of it. Skizz only ever keeps one pair of elytra. Maybe because he's missing his second pair of wings that can't glow anymore.

He can see people for who they were. Keralis is an eyesore (literally) and can hurt to look at. Grian has too many evenly split scars across his body and Xisuma knows what's behind them. Doc isn't a creeper.

There's a lot to Xisuma's View thing and I do wanna eventually start drawing how everyone looks to him, but I'm indecisive and don't know where to start. So idk maybe I'll open ask box for hermit requests. Can be interactions between Xisuma and specific hermits (both ones seen and not) or it can just be their design.

Idk but feel free to ask about them, I have designs for every hermit, empires member and even everyone in the life series. So he's got plenty of people to show you.

[pruneunfair]

Hello, excuse me, do you think you can do an analysis of the characters: Rasha and Layla pleaseI honestly can't understand the hate that some users have regarding these two characters who are pitiful, I mean, both Rasha and Layla can have one or another questionable moment but I honestly don't think that's the reason to hate them to the point of commenting things like "Rasha deserves her end or she deserves everything she lived through" "Layla deserves to be abused 🍇 by Mattias for being stupid and being the lover"Note: With this I'm not justifying Rasha's questionable things or that Layla has mixed feelings about her aggression, although the latter is more Stockholm syndrome, but it's regrettable when people hate them but can't understand or see beyond the social context in which these characters find themselves, Rasha being a runaway slave and Layla being a commoner without any power... it's sad how they hate women who are victims more that men are the ones who practically plan everything and use girls for their own ends.Psd: Do you also think you can talk about Stockholm syndrome? I've seen that on TikTok they usually blame Leyla for having this syndrome.

Thanks ❤️

it would be my absolute pleasure to.

Layla and Rashta. Two characters on the complete opposite sides of morality yet they are so similar in terms of past, love interests, and receiving hate from other people who don't give anyone a chance if they have a title of mistress.

Rashta is very easy to hate at first mostly because of her constant crying and being a thorn in Naviers side. It annoys people so much that it successfully distracted you from the fact that she's still a runaway slave. Constant crying isn't viewed as a response to trauma if it's a character people hate, the desire to survive isn't seen as such because it's "greed" for what Navier has. Everything about her is designed to be hated because she's a mistress and mistresses are all viewed as evil temptresses.

I'd honestly even say that her crimes were just used as an excuse for wanting her dead before she did anything. Older comments on the remarried empress proved it was never about morality. It was just about protecting the territory from anyone in need, since in the online community, being nice or in need of help is seen as "cringe"

Layla is hated though not as much as Rashta, she is still seen by many to be a silly strumpet who put herself in that situation even though she was 12, even though Matthias was 18 and knew what he was doing when he was purposely making that child cry. She had her whole life ahead of her, she wanted to graduate and be a teacher. Matthias's obsession with her readings to her being SA'D in the woods and she is further lying 🍇 when she has to become Matthias's mistress. Keep in mind, it's only for the sake of her uncle, she does not want to be this creepers lover.

Yet at the end of the story, she falls in love with him? Is it bad writing? Yes, but do you know what it also is? Stockholm syndrome. A syndrome/theory that explains why abuse victims fall in love with the people who hurt them. One reason is that they are too terrified to tell anyone the abuse and normalizes it as a coping mechanism, they can also develop anxiety, PTSD, or depression, and Layla won't be able to recover in a world where her abuser has won and everyone sees the abuse as just a love story. She's going to have to live with the idea that Matthias did nothing wrong and that it was her fault for rejecting the idea that she could've "loved" him all this time.

Why is it common to hate on women like this? Because of both a lack of critical thinking and research. We often hear the term "mistress" or "concubine" and think "oh she's such a slut." But if we were to do a quick dive into history, theres more to it.

Concubines in ancient Chinese culture aren't all the sexy temptresses we think of now. The concubines who would have worn valuable clothing and lived the high life would've been high ranking concubines. Most other concubines lived in poor conditions where they had to fight for the emperors love for more favor so their living situation could increase, in many cases it was also so they could have more food and water. So in actual history, concubines fighting for the emperors love wasn't for love or even power. It was to live.

Even European mistresses weren't safe. Anne Boleyn is a great example of this. She herself was technically not a mistress since she did her best to reject Henry VIII and really only accepted because he was the king and who could say no to the king? Her telling him she'd only be with him if she could be the queen is even thought to be an attempt to get Henrry to go away, and as we know, he divorced his first wife and married Anne anyway. Anne was beheaded just 3 years later after failing to give birth to a son.

So while cry or better yet beg is a disgusting story, what they do get right even if unintentionally is the truth of what it's like to be a mistress when you are a commoner facing a Duke.

And Remarried empress would be a whole new story if the truth on how concubines were living in those days was known to all those commenters.

[thecohenpazo]

Reasons The Minecraft Movie Will Be Terrible:

*LIVE ACTION*

This is the first mistake Warner Brothers made. Minecraft is a game that is known best for being an open, desolate world, without human life to interact with. What little of the world is made for you is ruined and abandoned. To see people here is to discredit the heart and soul of this game, which is that there is no one. You make the rules, you create the story.

*VISUALS*

Not only did they pull 0 real textures, geometry, lighting, colors, world generation, *anything*, they made it look like one of those, "Minecraft Realistic TexturePacks". The lighting changes between different shots of the same scene. The creatures look nothing like the games.

*AUDIO*

Minecraft is not a loud, booming game. It's a quiet, lonely setting, where you explore and build to settle yourself into a world. The music is absent most times, and when it fades in it makes one feel like what you've done has meaning. When you find a music disc, suddenly you have control over the noise around. The ambience of cave noises scared you when you were younger. The iconic sounds of mining, placing blocks, ring out in the minds of half the world.

The protagonists, don't need to speak. In fact, it detracts from the story if they do. Steve could be anyone, he tells all of our story's. Put a voice in him, and now he's just Jack Black.

*PLOT*

-Jokes: Usuallly, in a trailer for a movie, the humor can be quite telling of the whole experience. If two of the only trailer worthy jokes are animals making funny sounds, what does that mean for the rest? Minecraft isn't a funny game. It can be, of course, but for the most part, it's about finding some semblance of self in a world of no one.

-Cast: Piglins, in recent years, have become a sort of mascot for Minecraft as an antagonist. However, we've had far better antagonists that fit with Minecraft's design much better. A quiet, taunting menace. One who's been here from the start; Herobrine. The spiders and skeletons and creepers and zombies. The loneliness of the big world. The claustrophobia of the caves. The friends we lost along the way.

-Characters: Not very long ago, there were but two characters in Minecraft: Steve and Alex. But now there is a whole slew of misfits to include. I think something key about all these characters is, none of them need a voice. You don't need a celebrity actor to play Steve (sorry Jack). You can just have him be, show his emotions by how he interacts with the world.

-The True Story Of Minecraft: It's quite simple really. It's whatever you make of it. Sure, there are puzzle pieces, ruins strewn about, audio in discs, a poem at the end of the game, but truly, there is no real end. When you decide you've done what you came to do, you log out, and that's that. A movie about a silent character, moving through a world empty of kinship, creating something beautiful that others may never see. Or a movie about a group of friends, working together to make a mark on the land. Whatever it may be, *that*, is Minecraft. Minecraft is a story built on common experiences. Remember breaking a painting over and over to get the one you want? Remember trying a million ways to craft things? Remember believing in herobrine, trying to summon him?

This movie is just a cheap cash grab, meant to capitalize of the youths inability to judge a quality movie, and a lack of understanding of what this game means.

Go fuck yourselves, Warner Bros.

If you want some good alternatives, check out DAWN - A Minecraft Fan Film from Skyminer, Minecraft Anime Opening from DinxieMintie, Minecraft From The Mobs Perspective from Jackson Field, and many more!

[wingerwind]

Finally! Tuff Guys designs! They’re done! (Really wanted to get this out after session 3 before Tango was perma-dead, but luckily he is still here with us)

Obligatory ramble under the cut warning:

Bdubs looks very wonky but maybe that fits his character. If you squint you could say it was done on purpose. His pupils are permanently dilated. I don’t really know why I have this headcanon, but like…it feels wrong to have him just be a normal guy, you know? He’s like…weird-ish. Maybe not as obviously weird as Tango, but… remember his brief stint as a god during the Empires crossover? Yeah, I do. I just need to make SOME part of him vaguely inhuman. I feel like it fits with his big eyes, too. A combination of mascara and dilated pupils (I did not mean to make it look like he was on drugs but I guess that checks out too)

Now that I’m looking at Etho (eight heads tall) next to other characters (mostly seven heads tall) I realize that his small head makes him look very strange. HOWEVER I am probably just projecting as someone who is eight heads tall and always looks weird in photos (esp selfies) because despite being the closest to the camera I look like I’m further away at the same time. Also, despite Etho being blown up by a creeper his clothes have actually fared well and maybe that is favoritism. (Who, me? Favoritism?? Never) I couldn’t get rid of his mask, though. Come on.

Etho and Tango are both very much party in the back right now. They both got exploded from behind so the backs of their clothing are pretty much demolished. What you see visible of Etho’s original jacket, for example, is basically the only thing left. Just the right half and sleeve. Tango’s in the same boat but he got creative and decided to move the front of his vest thing (the only part which survived) around to cover his back which was very uncovered. His outfit is held together with hopes and dreams and probably some duct tape.

Tango’s pose was an absolute nightmare to draw, btw. I like how it turned out tho. (I actually REALLY like all the little design details in his hair…mostly the funny little tufts on his cheeks. Kinda like sideburns? I guess?)

[the-survivalist-chronicles]

Some cut pages from this comic. Though the basic idea is still the same and some of the dialogue remains, I am redoing these due to small edits and a different artistic approach.

The cover MAY actually be kept, as I’m rather proud of it, but it’s more likely that I’ll remake it.

In this draft of the story, Steve’s dim-wittedness was due to him being a little too cocky, whereas in the current version it’s much more due to his naivety. Steve and Creepy were also originally thieves, and had been for 90% of this story’s development, but with a heavy heart I had to change it to fit the story I wanted to tell. It was mostly a bummer because I liked the conversation between Steve and Creepy at the beginning, already establishing that Creepy is careful and likes to play the long game whereas Steve rushes into things a little too quickly, but I think the change will have been worth it.

I’m not sure how people will feel about my Creeper designs? I think overall Creepers and Endermen have changed the most, but Creepers still win that comparison by a long shot. I tried to make them more lizardlike, and gave them a tail to kind of compliment that (and because I think they’d need it for balance).

Even OLDER versions under the cut!

I do actually like the above version of the prologue (you can read the official one here!) but it was too much of an info dump. Most of the lore has stayed the same, though, and I do actually like the black/white parallel shots, it just didn’t make the cut, especially after I ditched the vaguely-realistic approach. It also talked a lot about random worldbuilding tangents (like illagers and such) that weren’t important for the story while not at all detailing the brothers’ story.

Last but not least we have this monstrosity! I hated (and still hate) drawing backgrounds, so I wanted to build the settings in Minecraft and use them as the backdrops, but I didn’t like the result….and look at this art! It’s not the worst, but the shading is terrible….and the creeper design just wasn’t super appealing to me. I feel like the current design is a little better at being likable to the reader but off-putting to the in-universe characters. Also I totally whitewashed Steve. My biggest mistake here was the shading, although I hadn’t quite mastered lineless art either.

It’s far from the worst art I have of them (again, I’ve had these characters since before fourth grade) but definitel6 not something I’m proud of.

[transingthoseformers]

Soundwave just... is excellent at minecraft. Dude's fucking amazing at modding, knows exactly where to look for diamonds and how to successfully navigate the nether. He's read everything online, and is the Owner of the server.

Things he did not account for, however, upon making the anarchy server:

Himself making the mistake of adding the fire and ice mod to the server, which means you will be continously harassed by teenage fire dragons. He thought it would be a cool addition with interesting designs, and instantly came to loathe the flying menaces along with Optimus.

Starscream committing PVP on sight with with exactly everyone. His introduction to the game was through twitch so i mean. He's not purpose griefing or seeking out other players to kill, juuust jumpy. And definitely streaming all of this.

Jack making absolutely massive intricate bases. He seems like a builder to me, and he most definitely has a small town going, and will build stuff for the other players. If you need a specific block, he definitely has it* (minus a few and you'll get why) i am dubbing the small town Jackstown as it is Jack's town lol.

Megatron somehow being aggressive mob magnet. I've mentioned this before but when Megs first found an Enderman he compared it to Soundwave, who told him to look it in the eyes. Megatron has trusted exactly none of the other mobs in the game or information given to him by any player that is not Optimus. Did not go through the tutorial.

Raf finding temples, fortresses, and dungeons— and afterwards removing any indication that they had been raided. Nobody knows where the hell his base is. He's the one who has played this game the longest, and is absolutely willing to go on tangents about minecraft. He's also fucking amazing at redstone.

Miko being Miko and taming exactly everything she can, meaning she has an absurd amount if cats and wolves. Make the mistake of hitting her character or a dog aaaaand you get what happens. Gave KOBD a black cat, Optimus a parrot, and regrets having given Starscream a horse. Her base is also in Jackstown.

Optimus being a creeper magnet. He may have Prime luck, but not when it comes to creepers lol. To me i feel like he's the first mech to see a supercharged creeper. He's lost like seven bases to fire dragons, and moved into Megatron's underground base. Out of the game Soundwave played a creeper hiss once and Optimus jumped lol.

Knockout and Breakdown being potion masters, and also willing to commit PVP but not with the same fervor as Starscream does. Breakdown usually finds the shit, and Knockout does all the crafting and brewing. They full well lean into this gay witches theme, with Jack giving them a Lot of stained glass.

Ratchet, who's also great at finding diamonds but is stingy as hell with them and keeps them for emergencies. His base is in Jackstown, completely has a medbay theme, and nobody knows how the hell he got villagers in there.

In general Good Fucking Luck finding redstone if you aren't Raf, Knockout, or Breakdown. And good luck finding diamonds if you aren't Soundwave or Ratchet.

Wheeljack being a fucking mazing at tinker's construct and applied energetics. He's learned the mods well and uses them to his advantage. Especially with anything that explodes, he's started a little war with Starscream aaand with the potion makers lol. His base is 100% booby trapped for the hell of it.

[localsharkcryptid]

LARGEST of thank yous @waterloverextreme​ for asking to hear my thoughts. This is all about characters of course but I don’t feel like putting the C! before every name-

SO! *clapping hands together* Now a pretty lengthy explanation of Sam being classic dragon coded: First off there are two main portrayals of European style dragons: Benevolent & Malevolent, Sam in fact fits both.

Starting with the benevolent, ‘good’ aligned dragons are creatures who grant protection and often wisdom - Sam originally upon joining the server often went somewhat out of his way to help people, namely Tommy much to Tommy’s dislike, and it is noted that his immense building and redstone knowledge in general made him the kind of guy people would get to help them. Sam also keeps his offer to Tommy to protect or help him if he ever needs it throughout the server events, making Sam Nook and all that.

Though this changes, drastically, with the construction of the prison and Sam’s role as the warden - turning from the benevolent to malevolent interpretation. This take on dragons is the og classic fantasy style portrayal, a giant beast of fire and wrath known for their cavernous lairs, obsessive nature towards their hoards and their lethal ire. This is the warden. The warden is the dragon that guards the vault, a prison of blackstone and lava, traps and tricks, rare valuables built into it’s very foundation with netherite blocks. Sam as the warden is more serious, the kind nature gone almost entirely shoved away by sense of duty to protect- for the greater good, he knows everyone that enters, everyone that leaves, and if anything is ever amiss or stolen from his lair. His anger flares more so as the warden, he leaves nothing to chance and threats are to be dealt with. violently. While yes there are other guards of the vault but the warden never truly leaves, after all a dragon never leaves what it guards for long. Adorned in neigh impenetrable armor and armed with lethal weapons, his appearance does only aid the comparison considering dragon scales are said to be stronger than any metal and their teeth and claws sharper and more lethal than any weapon of man. Oh yeah and the whole hostage situation thing with Ranboo and Michael, kidnaping is another signature. Also it’s not uncommon in folktales for dragons to have been employed or utilized to guard something and ultimately being slain for it, which works with cannon and a personal idea of mine but I will save my tie in rant for a technical au scene/dragon slayer Punz for another day.

With how I see it, he is a benevolent dragon turned malevolent through drastic measures and his own need to protect- no matter the cost. The vault brings out a side of him that is far more brutal and cold- reptilian even- than his true nature.

Along with this, his technical immortality falls in line as well, while Sam’s is through body swapping it is still immortality- much like how most dragons are portrayed as almost ageless beasts that only become more powerful as they live. Considering my headcanons Sam follows that as well- every body being a better improvement from the last. Golden armor being apart of his base design usually, gold being eternally connected to dragons.

Both his deaths as well fall in line with methods from dragon slaying legends - struck through the eye [one of the few universal weakpoints on a dragon] and generally collapsing to numerous wounds after, left to die if you will.

Now falling into personal headcanon territory: Within my own take on them Creepers are an apex predator species that has in the modern era split off into numerous sub-species to adapt to the various biomes BUT they do have a common ancestor within the histories. Referred to as The Draken Spawn this ancient ‘origin’ beast was said to be a creature of fire and destruction, a spawn of dragons left to the world since it could not fly. With my personal design for Sam, his current body for the events of the dsmp is a genetically modified “hybrid” of numerous creeper variants: a botched Draken Spawn effectively. That’s more just design symbolism though.

There’s probably more notes I can’t remember at the moment but yeah, the creeper man is dragon coded and I swear one day I’m gonna make a cool comic thing with this concept.

[azullumi]

the minecraft experience with them — various characters ☆彡

summary — in the world wherein the blocks are square, the sun is square, the moon is square, everything is square, how will they live and survive?

characters — kaveh, zhongli, childe, tighnari, cyno, wanderer, alhaitham, ayato (w/ gender neutral reader)

tags — fluff, modern, just some headcanons i thought of while playing minecraft; headcanons

word count — 1137

a/n — god my heart is melting seeing my friends act like couples in minecraft.

KAVEH — It’s obvious, guys, come on. He focuses on arts and the beauty of architecture and would most definitely take on the role of the builder and the designer of the world. He’s the type to build the most beautiful and extravagant house, create an underground base, and have a fully functional and pretty home that it feels literally out of the world. He consumes a lot of resources though and would spend more time gathering the things that he needs more than the time he spent on building. He’s the primary reason why the forests are bald in your world because of the amount of wooden logs he needed. There was also the time wherein a creeper came to his home and blew it up, ultimately destroying it, and he was in despair. Alternatively, if you threaten to destroy his base, hell will break loose.

ZHONGLI — The most efficient and lucky miner of all, as well as the gatherer of materials and resources. He’s the type of player to immediately venture out and look for a cave with a wooden pickaxe on hand. Nobody complains though because he’s extremely lucky at finding ores and getting the things you need early-game. Progress is easily made with him on your side because of how fast he can mine things and because of that, it feels like he’s an expert on the game even when he doesn’t play that much nor has any prior experience. Oftentimes, he’ll immediately find diamonds but doesn’t have the appropriate pickaxe to mine it but it’s not a problem however as he’ll find another one so easily. ‘I came looking for coal but found diamonds instead’ type of beat.

CHILDE — An all-rounder. He can be the miner, he can be the explorer, he can be the gatherer, he can be the farmer, and most especially, he can be the fighter. We don’t talk about his building skills though, this man would build a 5x5 house made out of wood and call it a base then reasons that this is much more effective and saves your resources. Well, whatever makes him happy, I guess. He often accompanies you wherever you go especially when you go mining as he’ll protect you from the mobs. He’s the kind of person to believe that placing a bed on nether and sleeping on it will give you a huge buff. He’s the adventurous type of player, the reckless and careless kind, and is the reason why keep inventory is switched to true.

TIGHNARI — FOOD. FOOD. RESOURCES. FARM. ANIMALS. FOOD. Food is the essence of life and is really crucial in the game. He’s in charge of anything related to farming and alike. You’ll find dozens of chests fully stacked with food and animal products, especially bread and baked potatoes. He’s the main supplier and giver of food, as well as, potions in your world. He’s the type who loves collecting flowers and has his home decorated with plants and vines because it looks pleasant and not like anyone complains because it looks good. He’s also the builder type and just one look at a reference picture for his builds, he knows how it is done even without watching a tutorial. Definitely doesn’t like spiders because of the way it looks and how it can climb up structures and invade your home.

CYNO — The fighter and bodyguard to the farm. He’ll take on the role of the protector as he protects the base and farm from creepers that threaten to approach, blow up, and destroy any form of hardwork and kill annoying skeletons that shoot at you from afar and hide underneath the shade of the tree to avoid being burnt and dying. He often uses the weapon, Trident, and would go even at the ends of the world just to attain it (since it’s a rare drop). He does whatever he is asked to and would often go explore to gather materials or get what is needed. He occasionally finds lush caves and would tell you about it, asking you to come to these specific coordinates if you can. You won’t need Iron Golems and anything to protect your home when you have Cyno.

WANDERER — Just like his name suggests, man is the player incarnation of Dora the Explorer and would rather focus on looking for those rare and hard-to-find biomes than settling in on one place. He takes days just for adventuring and sometimes it can last up to weeks or months in-game. He goes out to venture and seeks for strongholds, mansions, and villages, then once he’s satisfied, he’ll come back with good loot and hard-to-get items on hand. He pulls an uno-reverse card on enemies and would raid them, blowing up mansions and taking everything that he can. He knows how to come back to your base or wherever he came from though no matter how far it is. You really don’t have to worry about him getting lost since he understands how coordinates work and if you don’t, he’ll make fun of you for it but will teach you afterwards.

ALHAITHAM — An explorer and expert in gathering. He has tons of materials stored in his chests that he doesn’t use and only chooses to fight when he needs to but he somehow has his character on a fully enchanted diamond armor with enchanted tools, either iron or diamond. You need a stack of clay? He has it, it’s on the chest on the third column at the top. How about some cactus or snowballs? He has quite a lot of those. He also has a collection of leaf blocks and vines that you might like as decorations of your home. Of course, since he has those unnecessary things, he also has a ton of importance that are often really hard to get and find, especially the slimes. Because of this, farming and gathering wasn’t something you’ll have to think of when you play with him.

KAMISATO AYATO — Exploration? Mining? Fighting? Gathering? Farming? Building? Whatever you mention, he knows how to do it and is even good at it. He immediately becomes an expert on the game from the very first few times of playing, saying that it’s just like life itself with some weird mobs and a square world. However, he only gathers and collects precious and rare materials and items that, majority of the time, he ends up not using. He would never touch copper because he thinks that it has no use— it’s true though. He doesn’t do a lot of work and wouldn’t invest that much time in doing such trivial things and tasks so his base is mediocre, not big nor small, only made for functional and competent use, and his chests are filled with only items that are needed for late-game.

— navigation | masterlist

[killmebythebeach]

A bunch of head cannons (Maybe too much). Also in talking about the characters.

I think Dream is that one design where his skin is just the static tv screen. He just constantly emits that fuzzy noise, Sam crafted him the smile mask that he can see through so he doesn't scare people.

George is just kind of the server itself. He's the same species as Hannah, but a mushroom and more powerful. If he stays awake too long, the server just kind of freezes. This is also a reason XD keeps him sleeping, it's his way of talking to George and he thinks the server is like his soap opera of mortals.

Callahan is sort of like the person who makes sure George doesn't get killed or dies while asleep, making sure he's surrounded by mushrooms and such. Deer hybrid <3

Alyssa joined the server because she knew all her friends were idiots and didn't want them to die immediately. But once the elections rolled around, she felt the pressure of choosing sides and ran away to the desert, only keeping contact with Ponk. She actually lives just a couple miles from Foolish's summer home. Her communicator actually died after a couple months and she had no way of charging it, so she lost contact with everyone.

Sapnap is a magma cube hybrid and can jump higher than most, his natural temperature runs hotter, and is fire proof. Bad found him in the nether when he was maybe 10-15 years old.

Sam was actually a normal creeper, but gained player like sentience from being struck by lightning. Instead of becoming charged, he gained intelligence and met the others on the server. Callahan taught him some Redstone, but from there he figured out a lot on his own. He's also a creeper centaur.

Ponk is actually a descendant of a fairy, a lemon tree. Their mask was also a gift from Sam because after the second or third time their tree was burnt, their immune system was weakened a considerable amount. Alyssa also wore her mask for them.

Bad is a size shifting demon from the nether, more specifically soul sand desert. He uses soul fire to gain strength, so because the egg died when near it, he was just a little weaker than normal. Because he's a demon he needs a tie to the overworld to stay there, he tied his soul and lives to Skeppy.

Tommy was grown in a lab to be a hero, project: THESEUS. The lab gave him small enhancements, like slightly stronger and just a bit more resilient, to make the Above Average Boy (TM). He then ran away to meet Wilbur. When Dream asked Wilbur if he wanted to come to the server, he asked if Tommy could go first to see what it was like. He also actually really likes gardening and making up funny songs to Wilbur playing guitar. He also made funny lyrics for his discs, but he's still a bit scared to take them out of his ender chest. Other than bringing attachment, Dream also exiled Tommy to see what his lab enhancements could do.

Tubbo is an adaptive hybrid! His hair was blond, shifting to brown when Wilbur found him, getting blue eyes from Tommy, growing small horns under Schlatt, parts of his skin being static when Dream was "helping" him with his presidency, and parts of his scars tinging black and green from Ranboo and Micheal. Tubbo also helped Wilbur write part of the anthem. He likes living in the snow because the Manberg flag had magma blocks on it, casting a heatwave over the country, and after L'Manburg blew up it got really hot from the exposed stone in direct sun.

Fundy can actually hold his breath for a very long time and swim very well because of Sally teaching him and his salmon genes. The yellow things on his hat are actually shells, and the stripes on his jacket are trans colors. Also with his dreams, he saw Eret was going to betray them but didn't think it was real, or didn't want to. He also saw Wilbur blow up L'Manburg but chose not to believe it, thinking his father could still be saved. He actually saw pretty much everything, but didn't quite understand what they were until after doomsday.

The necklace Punz wears is one of those picture lockets, but he lost the picture and can't remember what it was. The first time Dream paid him was when Dream asked for help and Punz made an off hand joke about getting money, and then Dream thought he was being serious. Him, Dream, and Sapnap were like brothers, and Punz got sadder every time he saw Dream pushing people away and diving deeper into darkness.

Purpled is an aliensent to see if the planet was colonizable, but then crashed and was stranded, all his communications down and his ship barely able to hover fifty feet off the ground. When Quackity blew it up, he essentially got rid of his chance of ever going home. Purpled's species can shapeshift, so he turned himself into the first person he saw, Punz. Eventually before trying to communicate with the native life forms, he edited his form a little so they weren't identical, keeping purple eyes and antennae, changing the colors slightly, and changing the voice up. When he moves away from the main SMP, Ponk makes sure to check up on him and that he has a way to check his communicator.

Wilbur came a month after sending Tommy. His father being a patron of life and his mother the goddess of death, he met in the middle being born as a human. The only reason Ghostbur was as active and present as he was was because he was so connected to both life and death. Since his corpse was decaying for as long as it was, Wilbur is now super weak, his flesh is thin and his eyes are rotted and gone. Much like Ghostbur, Wilbur in limbo saw what people said about him, and Ghostbur could hear that from the back of his head. Now Wilbur can hear what people say about Ghostbur and he hates it, not wanting to be connected to what he thinks like a shell of himself.

Schlatt is a ram (duh) and actually does the fainting goat thing. So when he died of a heart attack, no one knew at first if he was actually dead or not. His alcoholism stems from the revive book, as the possibility of tampering with death made him existential and scared, so to cope he drank. There are also a ton of other stuff other than revival in the book, but it's in galactic.

Skeppy was just a normal human, but after making the pact with Bad, Bad put a spell on him. Parts of him turned into diamond, protecting both his and Bad's lives. He however, is unaware of this. With the egg, he would just sit on it, the diamonds chipping away to make room for the vines.

Eret was cursed by the Wither Cult, giving them white eyes and a slowly deteriorating memory. Not sure what to do, Foolish dropped them off at the SMP. Sometimes they would dream about old memories from before the curse, but it was just glimpses so he could never tell what they meant. Once they were king, they made the Herobrine shrine subconsciously, not really sure what it was after. They also had a strange affinity of beacons and resurrection, some of their memories resurfacing when they tried to help Phil and Ghostbur revive Wilbur after doomsday. The reason people are more scared of their eyes than any other wierd eyes was because he generally looks like a normal human, but the wither along with their Herobrine origins creates an uncanny valley that people are shocked by.

Jack had red and blue irises before crawling out of hell, but after coming back the whites of his eyes also turned red and blue. He always wears 3d glasses so no one noticed, but he just thought no one cared enough to mention it. He also has a bunch of scars and burn marks that no one but him can see, therefore no one asks about them or thinks something is wrong, cementing the idea that no one cares about him.

Niki is a blaze hybrid (stole this from @/420technoblazeit) whose fire hair color changes based on strong emotion, something she bond with Tubbo for as a fellow shifter. A soft yellow in L'Manburg, brighter orange in Manburg, hot pink on Doomsday, a soul fire blue with the syndicate (which Techno hates), and a dead grey when she found out Wilbur was alive. She was also old child hood friends with Ranboo and Eret, leaving Ranboo for the SMP. Ranboo, unfortunatly, doesn't remember much more than her name. She also knows galactic from Ranboo, so she talks about her troubles to Shy the Enderman. She doesn't really know how to talk to Puffy anymore after Doomsday or finding out how she wants to protect Tommy.

Quackity can perfectly replicate someone's voice and, with a lot of effort, can completely change his form to another player. He also has very small yellow wings, too small to fly, so he almost always hides them. He used to constantly change his voice for jokes with Karl, Sapnap, and George, but he doesn't like doing it now in Las Nevadas, as he sees it as unprofessional. However, sometimes he uses when he visits Dream, changing his voice to people like George and Sapnap to make torture more effective.

In the In Between and Other Side, Karl actually looks like his old skin, or his natural state (the big purple one that inspired his sweater). But most of the time in the normal world, he looks human. With effort he can bring out the interdemential being thing, something only Quackity and Sapnap know about. The more he time travels, the easier it becomes to change, and he's even started defaulting to the other form.

HBomb is actually just a normal news reporter, sent to interview and record what's going on in the server, his first big story being the election. Upon Doomsday, the stress of seeing everyone alone, fighting, and disconnected, he ran away from the world, essentially becoming a cat lady. His undercover reporter persona is actually the cat maid. He eventually came back to the server to see how he could help after Doomsday, befriending Niki again and living with her in the underground city.

Techno is a piglin, so he's scared of soul fire. He forgot to tell Phil before he decorated the syndicate room, so he just suffers in silence. He also does better when around a lot of gold, like in the nether, and he feels drained and slightly weaker without it. Instead of just putting gold around the area (it would ruin his property value), he just hibernates. He has an emerald earing, like all of the syndicate, but his is a locket that unfolds into pictures of the syndicate.

Ant always wears a red hoodie, now ruined by the egg, that used to be Red's. On Red's death anniversary, him, Bad, Skeppy, and Sam would make cake and put flowers on his grave. He missed the last one because it was during the egg, but for a brief moment after Puffy killed him he saw Red. Red then promptly and bluntly told him to stop being a pussy (haha, cat) and that he shouldn't do all this just to get him back, one of Ant's motivators to make amends with the people he hurt while with the egg. Ant is also a shapeshifter, but can only turn into a cat.

Phil actually used to work under Foolish as a patron of life but then he had a son with the goddess of death, so his title was removed so he could be with her and he became an Angel of Death. Kristin noticed how sad he was after being released, so she gifted him wings. They were however, destroyed on November 16th. His chat also serves as messenger pigeons, which were used to send letters to Wilbur.

Connor is actually just a hedgehog who somehow befriended Schlatt. Even before the haunted mansion, Karl vented to him about his time travel troubles, not knowing he was a sentient player. As a hedgehog, no one really cares where he goes, so he goes outside the server limits to meet his friends from the haunted mansion.

Puffy is a distant relative of Schlatt, but instead of politics she went into piracy. With her mom, she went travelling the seas. One say, a storm came and wiped out her ship, her crew, her mom, everything but her. The reason she survived was because Foolish saw her and saved her. Unfortunately, Puffy hit hee head in the crash and doesn't remember anything.

Vikkstar is the equivalent of a big time celebrity, so of course his endorsement of POG2020 was a big deal.

Lazarbeam is literally just a ginger bread cookie.

Ranboo has actually met a lot of the smp before actually joining. He's met Niki, Fundy, Eret, Punz, and Dream at least. He also sees the inverted colors Enderman see. His suit was actually a gift from Eret before they forgot how to tailor. He got the crown from Techno after joining the syndicate, claiming he didn't want any syndicate members to look like trash.

Foolish came to the server most recently to check up on Eret, but he couldn't bring himself to leave again. When Puffy adopts him, he can't say no because he remembers saving her. His initial goal was to kill an ender dragon to claim the XD title and become a full god like DreamXD, but after realising someone already killed it he went into his totem if death phase. Upon meeting Eret, he got over it and they went on some silly adventures, Foolish now taking a more peaceful route.

Hannah is essentially a weaker George, as her power is tied to the plants themselves and not the entire server. She however has a lot more physical power because rose dryads like to fight because they have thorns. Since roses can be taken out a lot easier, she is essentially a glass canon. Also when around any plant, she can make it grow faster than normal.

Any guest on the server? Corpse, Pokimane, Lil Nas? They were all Slimecicle. That's how he knows where everyone is from, even outside of Las Nevadas. No one else knows this. He's also ancient, if he met Phil they would probably recognise eachother. There was an actual Charlie Slimecicle who was not a slime, but after being launched into orbit this Slimecicle decided to impersonate him.

Michael Mcchill is a sort of bounty hunter. He came to the server after hearing of all the crime, assuming there'd be a lot of bounties to collect. However, he soon learned that no one really cares if you commit a crime. He then took to reading news articles made by HBomb to see if there were any past open bounties. But after reading for a while about the server's wronguns, mostly Dream, he began to sympathise with them. And he's also a speedrunner, so maybe he could help with some bounties across other servers!

This was a very long post and i apologize, but it was so fun to finally write all these thoughts down! I hope you liked them! I can't even fit all the tags I want.

[meruz]

once again i am answering asks in a big compilation post. included is... gotham, patrick stump, tips about drawing backgrounds, tips about drawing in general, links to my faq, and infinity train

like.... the tv series? No... I’ve drawn dc comics fanart before, though. But it’s been years since I’ve been really into it. I like jumped ship like 10 years ago when the New 52 happened LOL.

AFJHDSLKGH I’m sorry I (probably) won’t do it again??

Actually full disclosure I have a truly cringe amount of p stump drawings/photo studies in my sketchbook right now LOL. He’s just fun to draw... hats, glasses, guitar, a good shape... but I don’t think I’ll rly post those until I can hide them in another big sketchbook pdf.. probably Jan 2022. Stay tuned........ (ominous) 

(ominous preview)

These are all sort of related to backgrounds/painting so I grouped them together even though they’re pretty much entirely separate questions.... ANYWAYS

a) How is it working as a BG artist? Is it hard? What show are you drawing for?

I think you’re the first person to ever ask me about my job! Being a background artist is great. It’s definitely labor intensive but I think that could describe pretty much any art job (If something were rote or easy to automate, you wouldn’t hire an artist to do it) and I hesitate to say whether its harder or easier than any other role in the animation pipeline. Plus, so much of what truly makes a job difficult varies from one production to the next, schedule, working environment, co-workers etc. But I will say that I think while BGs are generally a lot of work on the upfront, I think they’re subject to less scrutiny/revisions than something like character/props/effects design and you don’t have to pitch them to a room like boards. So I guess it’s good if you don’t like to talk to people? LOL

A lot of my previous projects + the show I’ve worked on the longest aren’t public yet so I can’t talk about em (but I assure you if/when the news does break I won’t shut up about it). But I’m currently working on Archer Season 12 LOL. I’m like 90% sure I’m allowed to say that.

b) ~~~THANK YOU!! ~~~

c) What exactly do you like to draw most [in a background]?

@kaitomiury​ Lots of stuff! I really like to draw clutter! Because it’s a great opportunity for environmental storytelling and also you can be kind of messy with it because the sheer mass will supersede any details LOL. 

I like to draw clouds... I like to draw grass but not trees lol,,, I like to draw anything that sells perspective really easily like tiled floors and ceilings, shelves, lamp posts on a street etc.

d) Do you have any tips on how to paint (observational)?

god there’s so much to say. painting is really a whole ass discipline like someone can paint their whole life and still discover new things about it. I guess if you’re really just starting out my best advice is that habit is more important than product. especially with traditional plein air painting, I find that the procedure of going outside and setting up your paints is almost harder than the actual painting. There’s a lot of artists who say “I want to do plein air sometime!!” and then never actually get around to doing it. A lot of people just end up working from google streetview or photos on their computer.

But going outside to paint is a really good challenge because it forces you to make and commit to lighting and composition decisions really quickly. And to work through your mistakes instead of against them via undo button.

My last tip is to check out James Gurney’s youtube channel because hes probably the best and most consistent resource on observational painting out there rn. There’s lots other artists doing the same thing (off the top of my head I know a lot of the Warrior Painters group has people regularly posting plein air stuff and lightbox expo had a Jesse Schmidt lecture abt it last year) but Gurney’s probably the most prolific poster and one of the best at explaining the more technical stuff - his books are great too.

e) Do you have tips for drawing cleanly on heavypaint?

@marigoldfool​ UMM LOL I LIKE ONLY USE THE FILL TOOL so maybe use the fill tool? Fill and rectangle are good for edge control as opposed to the rest of the heavy paint tools which can get sort of muddles. And also I use a stylus so maybe if you’re using your finger, find a stylus that works with your device instead. That’s all I’ve got, frankly I don’t think my drawings are particularly clean lol.

f) Tips on improving backgrounds/scenes making them more dynamic practicing etc?

Ive given some tips about backgrounds/scenes before so I’m not gonna re-tread those but here’s another thing that might be helpful...

I think a good way to approach backgrounds is to think of the specific story or even mood you want to convey with the background first. Thinking “I just need to put something behind this character” is going to lead you to drawing like... a green screen tourist photo backdrop. But if you think “I need this bg to make the characters feel small” or “I need this bg to make the world feel colorful” then it gives you requirements and cues to work off of.

If I know a character needs to feel overwhelmed and small, then I know I need to create environment elements that will cage them in and corner them. If a character needs to feel triumphant/on top of the world then I know I need to let the environment open up around them. etc. If I know my focal point/ where I want to draw attention, I can build the background around that.

Also, backgrounds like figure compositions will have focal points of their own and you can draw attention to it/ the relationship the characters have with the bg element via scale or directionality or color, any number of cues. I think of it almost as a second/third character in a scene.

Not every composition is gonna have something so obvious like this but it helps me to think about these because then the characters feel connected and integrated with the environment.

Some more general art questions

a) Do you have any process/tips to start drawing character/bodies/heads?

I tried to kind of draw something to answer this but honestly this is difficult for me to answer because I don’t think I’m that great at drawing characters LOL. Ok, I think I have two tips.

1) flip your canvas often. A lot about what makes human bodies look correct and believable is symmetry and balance. Even if someone has asymmetrical features, the body will often pull and push in a way to counterbalance it. we often have inherent biases to one side or another like dominant hands dominant eyes etc. you know how right-handed artists will often favor drawing characters facing 45 degrees facing (the artist’s) left? that’s part of it. so viewing your drawing flipped even just to evaluate it helps compensate for that bias and makes you more aware of balance.

2) draw the whole figure often. I feel like a lot of beginner artists (myself included for a long time) defer to just drawing headshots or busts because it’s easier, you dont have to think about posing limbs etc. But drawing a full body allows you to better gauge proportion, perspective, body language, everything that makes a character look believable and grounded.

Like if you (me) have that issue where you draw the head too big and then have to resize it to fit the proportions of the rest of the body, it’s probably because you (I) drew the head first and are treating the body as an afterthought/attachment. Sketching out the whole figure first or even just quick drawing guides for it will help you think of it more holistically. I learned this figure drawing in charcoal at art school LOL.

oh. third mini tip - try to draw people from life often! its the best study. if you can get into a figure drawing/nude drawing class EVEN BETTER and if you have a local college/art space/museum that hosts those for free TREASURE IT AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT, that’s a huge boon that a lot of artists (me again) wish they had. though if youre not so lucky and youre sitting in a park trying to creeper draw people and they keep moving.. don’t let that stop you! that’s good practice because it’s forcing you to work fast to get the important stuff down LOL. its a challenge!

b) I’ve been pretty out of energy and have had no inspiration to draw but I have the desire to. Any advice?

Dude, take a walk or something.... Or a nap? Low energy is going to effect everything else so you gotta hit that problem at its source.

If you’re looking for inspiration though, I’d recommend stuff like watching a movie, reading a book, playing video games etc. Fill up your idea bank with content and then give yourself time/space to gestate it into new concepts. Sometimes looking at other art works but sometimes it can work against you because it’s too close. 

Also something that helps me is remembering that art doesn’t always have to be groundbreaking... like it’s okay to make something shitty and stupid that you don’t post online and only show to your friend. That’s all part of the process imo. If you want to hit a home run you gotta warm up first, right? Sports.

I should probably compile everytime i give tips on stuff like this but that’s getting dangerously close to being a social media artist who makes stupid boiled down art tutorials for clout which is the last thing i want to be... the thing I want to stress is that art is a whole visual language and there are widely agreed upon rules and customs but they exist in large part to be broken. Like there's an infinite number of ways to reach an infinite number of solutions and that’s actually what makes it really cool and personal for both the artist and the viewer. So when you make work you like or you find someone else’s work you like, take a step back and ask yourself what about it speaks for you, what about it works for you, what makes it effective, how to recreate that effect and how to break that effect completely, etc. And have a good time with it or else what’s the point.

for the first 2, I direct you to my FAQ

For the last one, I don’t actually believe I’ve ever addressed artwork as insp for stories/rp but I’ll say here and now yeah go ahead! As long as you’re not making profit or taking credit for my work then I’m normally ok with it. Especially anything thats private and purely recreational, that’s generally 100% green light go. I only ask that if you post it anywhere public that you please credit me.

(and I reserve the right to ask you to take it down if I see it and don’t approve of it’s use but I think that case is pretty rare.)

a) @lemuelzero101 Thank you!!! I haven’t played Life is Strange but actually  that series’ vis dev artist Edouard Caplain is one of my bigger art inspirations lately so that’s a really high compliment lol. And yeah I hope we get 5-8 too...!

b) Thank you for sticking around! I’ve been thinking about Digimon and Infinity Train in tandem lately, actually. They’re a little similar? Enter a dangerous alternate world and have wacky adventures with monsters/inanimate objects that have weird powers... there’s like weird engineers and mechanisms behind the scenes... also frontier literally starts with them getting on a train. Anyways if anyone else followed me for digimon... maybe you’d like Infinity Train? LOL

c) @king-wens-king I’M GLAD MY ART JUST HAS PINOY VIBES LOL I hope you are having a good day too :^)

a, b, c, d) yessss my Watch Infinity Train agenda is working....

e) aw thank you!! i think you should watch infinity train :)

[findingjoynweirdstuff]

Dream SMP Recap (March 3/2021) -     The Burger is a Lie

Tubbo moves past the denial stage of grief into anger. After creating a grave for Tommy, he decides that someone needs to be held accountable.

It’s time for some good old-fashioned detective work.

---

VOD LINKS:

[Ponk’s VOD was deleted so unfortunately I can’t recap it since I didn’t see it :( ]

Tubbo

Foolish

Awesamdude

Captain Puffy

Ranboo

---

- Tubbo walks down the Prime Path with plans to build Tommy a grave in Snowchester. 

- He doesn’t even know why or how it happened. Why was Tommy in prison?

“I want to blame someone -- I’m angry! Who’s to blame?”

- He wonders who set off the TNT to trap Tommy in there.

- Tubbo reaches Snowchester and finds a small ice island just outside the border to set up a gravesite. He makes a patch of grass, a wooden bench, puts down some flowers. He makes the gravestone out of wood.

“Tommy’s favorite block was literally oak wood. (laughs) He was a simple person, chat. He was a simple person.”

- He places a sign.

“In the Memory of Tommy. He was taken from us too soon.”

- He puts cobblestone around, and puts down a jukebox.

“This was meant to give closure, chat. This was meant to just give closure, but instead I’m just feeling more and more mad."

- Tubbo places down some lanterns and a Prime Log. He has a moment on the bench.

“Alright...so...what now? I’m pissed, dude. I don’t know how this was allowed to happen. I don’t know how this was allowed to happen. Receive his stuff from the prison -- no, I’m not going in that thing for a very long time.”

- He decides he needs someone to be held accountable. He wants to launch an investigation.

- He goes under the McPuffy’s and plans to make a little room to gather all the information in one place, and also a place to go in an emergency. Like a panic room or a bunker. No one should know about it until they have enough information to convict someone.

Tubbo starts building.

- He doesn’t even want to go into Tommy’s house, not even for supplies.

- He grabs a lectern for the room and starts writing. A storyline is needed.

The Crime:

- Murder

The Timeline:

- Tommy Visits Dream.

- Bomb gets set off.

- Tommy was Trapped with Dream.

- Tommy is The Crime is committed.

- Start with number two...where? Where were the bombs set off? Because if it was all a ploy, then Sam is the one to be held accountable. 

- Tubbo goes to the prison to check around the perimeter. The sound of the bombs came from above, but Tubbo remains skeptical. That could have been a ploy to cover up the tracks.

- Tubbo finds a patch of the shoreline where a water level is missing. He assumes that someone was just gathering sand there, not that it’s explosion damage.

- Tubbo flies onto the top of the prison and notices that there’s snow missing where the snow biome should encompass. A small area of a few blocks -- they must have been tampered with. Tubbo documents the evidence.

Evidence:

Tommy was trapped inside because of an explosion “outside” ..

Around the outside of “Pandora’s Vault” there was no evidence of explosion damage.

However on the roof of the Vault there is evidence of an explosion. We can tell this because of the snow pattern on the roof of the prison.

However snow can be broken by TNT from inside the Vault. But I suspect that the TNT was detonated outside.

- Now, Tubbo needs to go and find out who has access to stocks of TNT. Who has the majority of the world’s TNT? Well, there was a country that used to exist on this server. And who was responsible for its destruction? 

Tubbo visits L’manhole.

“Technoblade, Dream, and Philza. Suspects number two. We’ve moved on from Sam. Suspects number two and three, sorry -- Technoblade and Phil.”

“Everyone’s a suspect, chat. Guilty until proven innocent, I’ve always said.”

- And doesn’t Technoblade owe Dream a favor? Tubbo declares him suspect two.

- Tubbo runs to Technoblade’s house. There’s not much of anything out of the ordinary.

- He goes inside and looks through the chest, finding one with plenty of gunpowder, about half full. What looks off about it, though? What is missing here?

“Chat, where is the rest of the gunpowder, chat? Where is the rest of the gunpowder? It’s a fair question...Techno uses it for potions? No, no, hear me out. If chest was at least filled up to here, okay, that is four stacks and a half of gunpowder, okay? Each gunpowder is three splash potions. Three splash potions. So that’s over twelve stacks of potions! Potions that are not stackable! And in this establishment, there are not enough chests to hold twelve lots of sixty-four un-stackable potions. Rockets? Yeah, that’s another good call. What else is a good call? TNT. Let’s keep looking.”

- He continues to look through the chests, then exits. Suspect two has all of the materials to commit the crime.

- Suspect three? No sand, not enough gunpowder.

- He starts to leave.

“‘Check Ranboo?’ I mean it’s not gonna be Ranboo, is it? It’s not gonna be Ranboo. Yeah, he has access to all the stuff, but I doubt he even remembers it’s there..."

- He does a quick search anyway. The person who committed the crime must have not been prepared. They gathered the sand outside of the prison -- that’s what the missing shoreline must have meant.

- He notices Ranboo’s plan signs and reads them. He goes down into the basement but the vault door is shut, so he doesn’t find it. He assumes chat is talking about Pandora’s Vault.

“There is sand that has been mined outside the prison. The TNT was crafted rash. Technoblade doesn’t do rash, he does planned and calculated. Suspect two, three and four. I’m gonna presume they’re innocent right now, except for suspect two.”

- Technoblade could’ve supplied someone else with gunpowder. He wasn’t online during the explosion, but who was? Foolish and Ranboo.

“‘Big Law?’ Yeah, I’m back. I’m back in it again. I suppose you could say that...I’m on my A game right now.”

- Was Jack Manifold online at the time? No. Just Ranboo, Foolish, Dream, Tommy and Sam. Foolish lives in a desert. There’s a vast supply of sand in a desert...but was he streaming at the time?

- This does not look good for suspect number four...

- He returns to the bunker to get his evidence straight and places down signs.

Who Caused the Explosion?

Techno Owes Dream A Favor

Techno Has Gunpowder Missing

Sand Disturbed Outside The Vault

Techno Was Not Online @ The Time Of Explosion

Ranboo & Foolish Were Online @ TOM [time of explosion]

Foolish has access to sand

Ranboo has access to gunpowder

Sam lock Tommy In The Vault

Dream is in the Vault

TO DO:

Find out who visited Dream

Interview more players to get big picture

- Who visited Dream? So far, Tubbo only knows Tommy. Who else would ever want to visit Dream except for Tommy? 

- A dono leads Tubbo to realize that TNT can be planted beforehand with a timer. Sam could have planted the TNT with a timer. It could have all been Sam. It could have even been Dream with a contingency plan...but how could he have known Tommy would visit? Because of the favor? Did Techno convince Tommy to visit?

Why did Tommy visit Dream? Closure? Did anyone give him that idea?

- Tubbo decides he just needs more information.

- He sees the McPuffy’s...is it a coincidence that, as soon as Tommy got put in prison...burger shops started popping up on the Dream SMP?

- Maybe this happened because of the BURGERS.

- Could it have been Jack Manifold, wanting the hotel for himself? 

“Nah, Jack’s way too dumb for that.”

“The burger is a lie!”

- Maybe the Egg has something to do with it? Tubbo goes down into the Egg Room and shouts at the Egg to ask for answers. He leaves the Egg Room with no more answers, wondering if he’s about to leave the anger phase and head into bargaining instead.

- Ranboo works on his Conflict Resolution Pit after months, planning to finally finish it at long last.

- Ranboo looks at the chest by the pit and finds...a Manberg war shield? Whose is that? He isn’t sure what the shield means.

[Fun Fact: According to Karl about the banner’s design, the black represents all the colors combined, meaning “Unity.” The red is “the blood of our enemies.”

“It’s unity unless you go against us.”]

- Ranboo continues resource-gathering and building.

- Sam works on his creeper farm! He also answers several questions. Here are a few!:

* Are Sam Nook, warden Sam and Awesamdude all different people? 

Sam Nook and warden Sam are different people, but the warden is not a separate character from normal Awesamdude. They are the same person. Sam Nook is the only separate character. This will be explained more in the future!

* Why is Sam’s pickaxe named “Warden’s Will Breaker?” Does it have anything to do with breaking the prisoner’s will? 

“Mayhaps, mayhaps...”

* Isn’t it a little strange that he’s building a creeper farm? 

“Well, I’m the king of creepers so they should be excited to die for me.”

- Ranboo asks if he can shoot Sam. Sam says yes (in game)

- Ranboo shoots Sam in the face. Sam turns majestically and stops moving. Ranboo is confused and is worried that Sam might not be alive. Sam’s computer is suffering.

- Ranboo tries to get Sam to move.

“Oh my god he’s been completely paralyzationizitated.”

- By Sam’s request, Ranboo tries to push him to safety.

- Sam has been bound to the y-axis! He starts seeing through Ranboo’s stream.

- Ranboo tries to drive Sam in a boat but he starts seeing colors. 

- Sam dies on the Prime Path. Ranboo makes a marker sign in remembrance of where he died by paralyzationizitation. 

---

Upcoming events remain the same.

[axiang-n-chengling-s-dads]

Eun Dan Oh: Changing Her Fate

“I just want to live my own life. I want to live as the Eun Dan Oh who says and does what she wants. (...) Let’s change our fate together.”

She was supposed to die

There is much to say about Eun Dan Oh, but there are two things I want to discuss first. Number one, I feel strongly that she was not supposed to live till the end, and that there could be no other protagonist of the show other than her.

To start the first one off, here is the character sheet for ‘Secret’.

Here, Eun Dan Oh is right down in the really extra characters, whereas Kim Ae-Il is actually right beside Baek Kyung. In contrast to this, over the course of the story, Dan Oh gets a lot of screen time (page time?), with her heart disease, Bake Kyung’s changed feelings towards her, the healing of her heart, and the ‘happy ending’ for them, whereas Kim Ae-Il barely has any lines at all.

This means that Dan Oh, by constantly changing the stage and bringing herself to the author’s attention, added to her importance in the story. It is possible that Baek Kyung’s changed feelings in the shadow also impacted the stage.

Secondly, is this line by Dried Squid Fairy. When Lee Do Hwa asks him if its possible that Eun Dan Oh might die.

“It is only possible because she is an extra.”

This hints at the fact that if she become more important to the plot, i.e. not just an underdeveloped extra, she might live. Now as we know, by changing the stage constantly, and sometimes becoming a part of them, she became more important to the plot. If she had not, she’d have still been an extra, and possibly died.

My third argument is the storyboard that Eun Dan Oh sees of her surgery before she dies. The doctor shouts out her name in despair, a teardrop falls from her eye, and most importantly-- she visibly flatlines in the storyboard.

When Haru switches the medical papers, this surgery goes to Ju Da’s grandmother-- as per what we already know, she must now technically face the same fate as Dan Oh in the storyboard.

That however, does not happen. When both Lee Do Hwa and Oh Nam Ju talk about the surgery, they express that the surgery went ‘well’. Of course, flatlining during a surgery is not great, and definitely causes complications, so the fact that Ju Da’s grandmother doesn’t face much means that not only were the roles switched like they are every time, but the basic story in itself changed.

It makes a lot of sense to me that initially Eun Dan Oh was destined to die. She would be an extra that could be killed off without much pain to the readers, but the incomplete love story between her and Baek Kyung would force the readers to now look for, and root for, a reciprocated one-- Nam Joo and Ju Da. This trope (unfinished love story of the second or third leads) is often used in romances and many k-dramas, and it makes sense that this is what the author wanted to do.

However, Eun Dan Oh becomes more than just a love-bridge, and forces her way into making more and more pages for herself, allowing her character to develop fully.

Her Philosophy

The second thing I wanted to talk about is her way of looking at things, and why it means she is the only person who could have been the protagonist of Extraordinary You.

"Because my life belongs to me.”

This is one of the first things that Dan Oh says when she finds out she’s a comic character. In fact she also says something similar later on when she loses her self-awareness. Even in that state, Eun Dan Oh is adamant on writing her own story. It is this persistent need that pushes her and all the other characters to change the stage. She is the one who pushes Do Hwa to go to Ju Da, and the one who pushes Baek Kyung to find his real self too.

“I’m going to change it (the stage) until the end.”

Like Soo Hyang had said before, people’s version of happiness or fate is different for everyone. While Ju Da thinks she’ll be happier following the fate of her character, it is only Eun Dan Oh who is confident that a happy ending is one which she writes on her own. She believes that changing the stage i.e. taking the narrative of the story under her control, and rebelling from the writer is the most significant thing to do. While other characters eventually cave in to the author, it is Dan Oh who rises time and again to change the stage.

"I chose to like Haru and I choose to change the stage.”

One of her most powerful beliefs is the faith she has in the power of choice. It is what helps her overcome the fear of the previous novel, and of dying-- that, in the shadow the actions and feelings and motivations she has are the real ones, because she chooses to have them everyday. It also helps her deal with the consequences of her actions-- that they’re due to the choices she made, rather than the ones that were thrust upon her.

“They all have their stories, and the things that are precious to them, but they have no choice but to do whatever the writer wants.”

In the world of comics, everyone has their designated positions. There’s the male lead, the female lead, supporting roles, and extras. The time you get, the character depth you have all depends upon this hierarchy. Eun Dan Oh is the one who discards this completely, treating each person, not as their role, but as real people. “In Eun Dan Oh’s world, you (Haru) are the male lead.” Her wish of being more than an extra is not to be the main character in the author’s story, but to get more depth and justice to her personality and character.

“They are cliches, but we’re the only ones who know how cruel and sad this is. Because we’re just Dan Oh and Baek Kyung before our characters.The Dan Oh of ‘Secret’ wants to thank you, and the Dan Oh of ‘Trumpet Creeper’ forgives you.”

Eun Dan Oh, by viewing characters as people first, puts into motion the thought process that finally ends the cycle of pain and hatred among everyone. She forgives him for killing her, Jimichi Fairy forgives him for killing his lover, Baek Joon-Hyun lets go of Trumpet Creeper too. This lets the characters let themself develop into breathing beings, instead of just their roles, and break free from the author’s constraints.

My favourite of course, is her take on why they keep on repeating lines, which I’ve spoken about in the post about the Trumpet Creeper here.

Eun Dan Oh is one of the most incredible characters, for her determination, persistence, and her way of thinking. She emodies the butterfly, the smallest flutter of whose wings brings about the biggest typhoons.

[carminite-wyrm]

A Genshin Impact Hermitcraft AU Idea, God Help Me

Last year, on September 28, a particular gacha rpg game was released and I, occasionally regrettably, fell straight into playing it. In honour of the fact that this will mean I have lasted nearly a whole year (I got the game a week after bc uni) determinedly not spending any money on Genshin whilst also trying to roll good characters…here’s a bunch of Hermitcraft Genshin AU ideas that I initially came up with at roughly 2.40 am.

The general idea of this AU is that the Hermits end up in a new world that has Genshin-esque mechanics, on top of the usual Minecraft shenanigans. So, Visions and stuff. Also, we’re gonna just…briefly ignore the actual Genshin lore in regards to how Visions and Gnosises (Gnoses?) come about, for this one.

Post-S8, the Hermits are travelling to a new world, ready for another season.

The moment they arrive, it is clear to them all that…something is different. Something is vastly different with this world, for all that it appears much like the previous servers that they have lived in and travelled to. There is something of a…presence to it, in a sense.

When the Something Different doesn’t appear immediately, being the demigods/almost-deities that they are, they go about their days, setting up starter bases, gathering the basic resources and tools, the usual beginnings.

Things change when Doc wakes up one morning after a hard day at work building a new redstone machine, to find a small glowing chess piece lying next to his head, crackling with an ethereal purple light

Upon picking it up, he feels a burst of energy, almost like that one time in the previous world where he and Ren built a lightning-summoning tower

However, the changes it has wrought become apparent later that day when Scar comes out of nowhere with the recording of a creeper’s tell-tale hiss and explosion, and Doc sends him flying backwards with a startled blast of lightning

At first, they chalk it up to ‘Something Funky With Doc’s Current Project’, but after some tests, some experimentation to confirm if it was a one-off reaction…they end up confirming that they may have found out what the Weird Thing about this season’s world is

The duo go to Xisuma with their findings, and, to their collective surprise, X can’t find anything blatantly broken in the server’s code, but he does find a few interesting lines within.

By all appearances, this is not a glitch, but simply an intended feature of the server

Seven lucky hermits, designated as Archons in the server code, will receive a Gnosis, an artefact of elemental power that the server can assign, given to the ‘player who best suits the element’

The server notes speak of how the power granted (and represented through the chess-piece-shaped item) will grant the receiver the capability to shape the land around them

By random chance, other players on the server will also be gifted a Vision, a somewhat lesser artefact that will still grant them a form of elemental power

Given that the Hermits are practically gods in their own right, considering they are already capable of shaping the worlds they arrive in as they see fit…are more curious than worried, at this point

They agree to keep an eye out, to see how chaotic the sudden acquisition of elemental powers will turn out

The next person to receive a Gnosis is Grian, who delights in the bursts of wind he can use to buffer his flight, gliding across the server with naught but the turquoise magic the server has seen fit to grant him

After that, most of the Hermits soon receives some sort of Elemental power from the server

A Summary of Who Gets What (That I can think of so far):

Doc: [Electro Archon]

Can summon lightning, without need for a trident, a thunderstorm, or a machine that can generate an ongoing thunderstorm for as long as its activated

Can also generate an Electro shield, though it does require his active concentration to maintain for longer than a few seconds. This shield appears like a charged creeper’s aura, except purple

Capable of generating a thunderstorm at will, but rarely does it on account of mob spawning dangers

Has found that by channelling a low level of Electro energy, he can in fact power redstone machines just by tapping them/being in close proximity to them

This has proven to both be a blessing and a curse, considering that on occasion, when startled, he has short-circuited some of his machines

Grian: [Anemo Archon]

Generally, uses his powers as a free rocket boost for flying around the server

Upon finding out that he can use the Anemo energy to create pockets of energy that can boost flight, he takes to leaving them all over the server, in convenient locations to make flight that much more efficient

Yes, he absolutely sets up a fancy elytra course that makes use of his flight-boosters to send players rocketing around a course at breakneck paces (poor Scar experiences many instances of kinetic energy)

Bdubs: [Geo Archon]

Suddenly, making mountains and other works of major terraforming is a lot easier

Certainly, he still prefers to sculpt them and detail them by hand, but bringing the basic shape of the mountain forth by brandishing the power of Geo is something that he can do with ease, in this world

A new shop pops up in the shopping district rather quickly after this realisation: Bdub’s Landshaping Service, Now offering quick terraforming at a budget price! (it is, in fact, a service that makes him quite the amount of money)

And when he wants to sleep, without the other hermits breaking his bed? A glowing shield of steadfast golden magic takes care of that.

Gem: [Dendro Archon]

The patch of the server that Gem has claimed for herself quickly springs to life as plants of all varieties grow to surprising proportions, energised by the power that she now can radiate

The effect is most notable in and around her home, of course, but wherever she travels, the plants grow more vibrantly for days afterwards

Adding a forest of birch around her house takes little more than a thought, a fact she uses to prank some of her friends, those who in the last world were rather vocal about their dislike of non-stripped birch

Another power Gem finds herself with is the ability to summon vines even without a surface for them to initially grow upon, and thus it is not uncommon to see Gem building or resting in a hammock of woven vines

Cub: [Cryo] (cannot make up my mind if I think he’d be Archon material or not)

Gathering powdered snow has never been easier, as instead of waiting for a storm to form and last longer than it takes a Hermit to get into the nearest bed, he can simply clap his hands together and a lump of snow shoots out from just above his shoulder.

It does hurt, getting hit by the sudden snow barrage that Cub is now capable of, but except for the occasional snowball fight, his newfound snow-creation ability is used for making increasingly more insane mob farms and snowy building decoration

False: [Pyro]

The magic her Pyro Vision grants her doesn’t become apparent, not for a while, until she visits the Nether for the first time in this world

A mis-swing in a bastion, and suddenly a horde of piglins and hoglins are chasing after her, and there isn’t enough time to pillar away.

She readies her sword and shield, ready to fight, and suddenly her blade crackles to life with bright flames, unlike the fire aspect enchantment in that it actually is on fire.

Every attack she lands, whilst her sword is alight, seems to invigorate her, return strength and stamina that was lost when she had first tried to flee the enraged inhabitants of the bastion

Xisuma:

The admin is one of the few to not receive a Vision or a Gnosis

Quietly, he does admit to being relieved, considering his powers as an admin are already much greater than that of the other Hermits, for all that they are still his equals

And then, one day, whilst X is placing his diamonds to sign up to one of Grian’s newest competitions, he feels a rush of foreign magic, so unlike the familiar ordered pulses of server code

The blast of wind that comes with a swing of his sword, much later whilst he is mob-farming, is greatly surprising, if not unexpected.

The funny thing about all these new powers, granted by the server itself in the form of artefacts that can easily sit in one’s palm, is that for all they are miraculous on their own, the natural capabilities of the Hermits are already enough to rival them

In the hands of an ordinary person, an ordinary player, the powers from this world would bring them close to the near-omnipotence of Creative, could even be the driving force of server-wide conflict.

Powers such as these, while they can build great things, can so easily be used to destroy, to cause war and destruction, and in other realities, they have.

Perhaps whatever trick of fate that caused the server to be capable of granting these powers hoped to create that conflict, to see what would happen when only a few of their number were gifted such strengths.

Later, when the initial surprise and rush to test out the limits of the server’s granted magics dies down, Zedaph approaches Xisuma, one of the few to not possess an artefact of elemental magic, with an observation

Zedaph notes that, from his studies of the Hermits’ new powers, almost all of them are oriented vastly towards combat, whether they be summonable blades of frost, elemental shields, or even the ability to soothe aches and hurts

And even though the Hermits have all found ways to make those powers work in the ways that they wish them to, it does not take away from the fact that the likeliest original purpose of this server’s magic was for fighting

Any other server, any other group, Zedaph quietly says, and there would more than likely have been bloodshed, given the inequality in the range of power granted

At the end of the day however, unexpected gifts of power or not, the Hermits, at their core, are a group that creates and innovates, a band of friends that shape entire worlds with naught but their own ideas and willpower, and regardless of what powers they now possess in this particular realm, that will not change.

[blazehedgehog]

What are your thoughts on the infamous "Top Ten Hottest Female Sonic Characters" video? I don't mean that question as a joke, do you think that that video kinda set back the image of "Sonic fan" back for a good few years?

My stance on this has always been that everyone on the internet is weird about something, and Sonic fans are not necessarily weirder than anything you’d find if you overturned a rock in another corner of the internet.

This is an immutable fact that becomes more obvious the more time you spend online. Spend enough time online and you’re going to see something you didn’t know existed, and if you spend too much time online, eventually you start to become numb to it.

In isolation I think that video is meaningless. There’s lots of things out there of that caliber -- the “Andy drawing a map of Princess Peach’s Eyes” image, for example. You might know of that image, but not many people know that it was only one of many. There was a whole series of those comics that was basically “me, a human male of the real world, repeatedly express my deep romantic affection for Princess Peach.”

Or, like, Pokemon, right? I remember in the early days of the Let’s Play community, Pokemon Let’s Plays had to be permanently banned from SomethingAwful on all grounds because it attracted thirsty creepers who weren’t very subtle about their feelings towards underage girls.

Like I said, there’s weird stuff all over the place if you point the spotlight in the wrong directions. And for some people out there, it’s part of growing up -- more and more of the internet is being taken up by the awkward intellectual awakening period we experience in transition from child to adult. A lot of earnest emotional confusion is being permanently recorded out there for all to see as we all figure ourselves out.

Tangentially, I see discussion today about how Zoomers in particular are a generation that has no guilt and openly embraces the cheesy and the stupid with genuine love, and I think it’s related to that. They can’t hide from who they were as kids, they just kind of have to own it. I can respect that.

What I think happened with Sonic is just the games themselves being so bad. Getting things like Shadow the Hedgehog, and Sonic 2006, or even the later Ken Penders run of the Archie comics, whatever, and kind of forcing the question: “If they’re always so terrible, why do they keep making more?”

That naturally leads to one answer: because Sonic fans keep buying them. So what’s wrong with Sonic fans?

“Well I saw this video one time...”

“There’s this webcomic about this medallion...”

“Have you seen what these church kids are drawing?”

In the big picture, nothing out of the ordinary is actually happening here. Kids are being kids (broadly speaking). It's a natural effect of Sonic maintaining a certain level of popularity with a certain age group for a sustained period of time.

I’ve even talked about how Sonic has kind of reached this status where the franchise is almost a perpetual motion machine. Sega couldn’t kill Sonic the Hedgehog at this point if they tried. It’s become this thing like Star Trek or Transformers where fans will just exist forever, even during lulls in quality or breaks in media. They will churn out their own new content and feed each other for theoretical eternity. If Sonic has survived this much for this long, it is immortal.

But that also means that, like... what is a “brand”? It’s a set of standards and rules governing the appearance and behavior of a specific piece of intellectual property. In order to be “on-brand” you have to adhere to the rules, otherwise you are not allowed to be part of the brand. Luigi is always taller than Mario. Mega Man’s briefs are always a different color than his arms and thighs. Sonic the Hedgehog can never cry.

Fans don’t have to stay on brand. The “brand” is whatever they think it should be. They can do anything with the characters, take them anywhere, write anything they feel like, embarrassing or not. Sonic the Hedgehog is a ghost now? Sure why not. Tails is part of a massive crossover involving every cartoon media property in a war against internet bullying? Nobody can stop you. You can just make up anything and do it. Sega probably wouldn't approve, but if you're a fan, you don't need their approval. You just need faith in your own ideas.

And this even applies to big budget, professional work. We've seen it before, when Sega lets other people redesign Sonic. Style guides and brand rules are what keeps a character in check so they look and act in a consistent way, but if you pull back the curtain and look at what gets submitted before the rules are applied...

...then even professional, “official” designs start getting pretty weird. Artistic license is great and all but people will break characters over their knee and remake them as something unrecognizable if you give them enough room to do so.

And for a fandom, not only can they be like this all the time, forever, they can go even further beyond. When you have an imagination, the sky is the limit.

And, again, I say “fandom” there. Not just Sonic fandom, but all fandoms, everywhere. They always were, and always will be like this. (And, to be clear: that’s great!)

The only difference is, Sega’s own inability to stay consistent gave more people a reason to go turning over rocks and seeing what crawled out. Unsurprisingly, a very active, self-sustaining fanbase meant there was a lot to see.