#maintagging this because it needs to be said

[cidandy]

dandy would love will wood

[wafflesrisa]

My final feelings on the matter are that I 100% understand the fear of speaking out when asked to join in on an inappropriate joke. It’s an ingrained fear in all of us to stick your neck out from the crowd.

But Daniel is an F1 driver, an incredibly popular one at that, and the issue being laughed about is one he’s very familiar with and on which he actually has the knowledge to contribute an opinion on.

He had a responsibility to overcome that fear and stop that conversation in its tracks.

Instead he chose the path of least resistance. I wanted him to be brave, I expected him to be braver.

[tentacleplains]

more scenes that basically everyone sees but pointing out a specific detail i find interesting: "though i hope you don't cause a scene this time" does avery regularly cause scenes at parties?? lmao

[welcometogrouchland]

May I ask about your Jason Todd idea? <3

Hm, okay so. How to lay this out sensitively since I know it might be a tad controversial...

Prefacing by saying I'm not an expert on the minutias of Jason characterization. I like him when he appears, I think the battle for the cowl/Morrison era and some parts of modern era for him are Weird and Bad, but I'm not Jason scholar (for that I'd say maybe check out @/tumblingxelian and their great video essays), I'm just trying to think of what might be an interesting step forward for him.

First, the canon facts

Jason got lobotomized and has panic disorder on steroids. By the end of Gotham War (specifically when Jason was. Flying the batplane into the asteroid. God I can't believe that's the plot) he was finding it in himself to power through said panics

In Joker: The Man Who Stopped Laughing #12, the joker gives Jason a "low dose" of joker venom, which has an ambiguous effect on Jason, allowing him to power through the fear (which joker explicitly states is still very much present, just not physically debilitating, like when Jason couldn't run over in either Catwoman #57 or #58, the one with the kid in the building) even though he'd been able to do that sans venom over in Gotham War, like I previously stated.

The effect of said joker venom seems to be lingering for now, minus the creepy grin side effect it gave Jason over in that man who stopped laughing issue, as seen in the latest batman issue (number is escaping me rn, #147??). He still has the stutter which is a shorthand for fear, he's drawn with fearful expressions by Jorge Jimenez, but he says that he's "working through it" thanks to the chemicals

This is both super interesting and kind of maddening as it doesn't completely remove the consequences of what happened in Gotham War, but is trying to sweep them under the rug and get back to business as usual. I, however, propose making said consequences front and center like a fashionable urn on a mantle piece:

Since it's never stated how exactly the joker venom works, and I think the current answer is "it works how the story needs it to" I've decided that because it's a low dose, it eventually wears off. And when it wears off, Jason's back to square one in terms of mental state. Ergo, if Jason doesn't want to live the rest of his life as quaking shivering husk of his former self...he's going to need more.

(read more for the meat of things)

So, Jason self medicates for a condition given to him by the father he has endlessly complicated feelings towards with a cure invented by a man who represents everything he hates in the world who once tried to take everything from him.

Which, insert poetic cinema gif here, I'm quite proud of myself for that one.

Anyway, there's a lot of directions you could take this. Personally I think it'd be interesting to explore Jason trying to get back into the drug trade like he did in UTRH (FULL TRANSPARENCY I HAVEN'T READ THE FULL COMIC, I KNOW BROADSTROKES BUT IM NOT GONNA TRY AND MAKE PARALLELS) as he tries to use the resources (production plants and other drug runners who can hook him up with samples of joker toxin/similar stuff you can probably find around Gotham) to manufacture his own cure that means never having to go back to the joker again. Maybe he ambushes a joker toxin chemical production plant to get his own supply, and then Jason uses this as his foothold back into that world.

This isn't necessarily me saying we should regress Jason alll the way back to UTRH, that was before his anti-hero era and I'm not willing to fully shoot him back into the past. I just think that's not how you tell good stories in a medium like comics. But it'd inherently be a little different just bc he's doing it for different, slightly more self motivated (depending on your take on villain Jason) reasons and the people around him would have a different reaction to it.

Anyway, all sorts of problems can arise! Depending on how you wanna characterize Jason (wayward son who longs to be back in the fold or black sheep who doesn't play by daddy's rules, etc) he can either a) try and hide this criminal enterprise from his giant family full of nosy detectives (good idea there jay) OR do it out in the open, trying to justify himself but still putting himself on the opposite side of the family again (not the law bc that boy hasn't been on the 'right' side of it since he died)

There's also the fact that Jason now needs to take something 24/7 in order to live his life. He essentially can't be without it, he's dependent on it, in fact he'd get sick without it despite any adverse effects it may have on him (which are guaranteed, I mean. No clinical trials)

I imagine it'd be easy to become addicted to it in some way.

And uh. This is the part where it works slightly better as a fanfic pitch than an actual comic pitch. Because as much as I think it'd be such an interesting beat for Jason's character considering his fraught history with addiction and drugs (looks away from that one urban legends story where he suggests terrorising addicts to get to the suppliers and bruce lectures him. The easiest way to make Mr "we don't sell drugs to children" sympathetic and you beefed it)

I also fully recognise that this is a sensitive topic that DC doesn't have the best track record with (although addicts aren't a monolith and feel a number of ways about addictions portrayals in comics) and that there's probably some pitfalls inherent in the premise, namely bc of Jason's background as an impoverished kid and his grey morality, and how those play into stereotypes of addicts. Addiction is already such a misunderstood and stigmatized condition that I imagine playing with it with an antihero might be enough to turn some people off. Addiction is not a moral failing and I'd hate to write it as a moral failing of Jason akin to his willingness to kill, etc.

But with all that said, I think that stereotypes are primarily harmful because of their shallowness. They inhibit understanding of groups labeled "other" by presenting them in simplistic ways that don't portray richness or complexity. And I think a truly good red hood comic could give both sympathy and complexity to Jason, even as an addict. If anything, Jason is a popular character (mostly) and there could be something nice about seeing a main character go through what you're going through, gritty details and all. YMMV (can we bring that back btw?) and it depends on execution. There's a lot of ways it could go wrong, but seeing as it just lives as a hypothetical rn, I think there's also a lot of ways it could go. I mean, not right, it's a downer story beat for Jason but it's mostly meant to be interesting and a vehicle for more stories as Jason navigates it, ya know?

Anyway, I have a lot of spiels littered in my notes app and discord DMs that elaborate on all this (how this could work as act 1 in a broader Jason story where his little operation goes to shit and he has to hit the road (jack) and maybe do some character development for better or worse. I'm a sucker and wanna say better- not squeaky clean better but. Yknow, finding himself to an extent. I recognise I'm a sap and a fool tho. Or how a new outlaws team could factor into either of those eras (since I do like Jason with an outlaws team. It gives him an excuse to exercise his compelling relationships and dynamics with other characters without having to constantly tip-toe around the elephant in the room whenever he's with the batfamily all the time. He just needs a good lineup) but that's all for another time

... though without elaborating on the vision in my head it kind of just sounds like my pitch is "Jason gets addicted to his hyper-anxiety medication" BUT I SWEAR ITS MORE THAN THAT.

It's like. If Jason has struggled as a character (and this is very subjective on my part so feel free to disagree) because he has compelling relationships with all of the batfamily, but also has compelling grey morality that makes it hard to capitalize on those relationships, without the conflict always coming to "Jason stop killing!" "Nuh uh!" OR just being ignored, and the main way writers have addressed this is via reboots instead of arcs...

Then giving Jason and the bats:

real, legitimate and fresh reason for jay to be mad at Bruce (taking their relationship of love with very little understanding to it's most dramatic conclusion)

give the family a real reason to want to bring him back into the fold (feel bad about the lobotomy and it would be pretty immoral to let Jason waste away slowly and painfully because of something Bruce did)

capitalize on all the ways Jason is sympathetic (bc the addiction is a natural lead into his backstory, which is one of his most sympathetic elements)

And the ways in which he's very out of step with the bats post-resurrection (I'd be mad asf too if i came back to life just for my dad to a) not avenge me and b) LOBOTOMIZE ME meanwhile the cunt ass clown giving me my meds is just lurking out there).

Idk it's not a sophisticated pitch as of this moment but I think a real chef (writer) could cook something w/ this

[shiroselia]

While I was definitely more critical about horse progression initially because it looked a Lot worse than it turned out to be I am still incredibly critical towards the features excessive reliance of taking already existing freely available features and now putting them behind a grind (there's no reason the faster gallop should be locked other than SSE needing Something There, no matter how easy it is to get, and it's also a bit of a Theme that I'm very very worried about but that's for a whole other rant)

And more than anything this shows itself in the Level 7 rewards. It is nothing but plain stupid to lock the gaits + moves behind a grind wall. I've already said that it's shitty to have something which the player already pays extra for at the beginning be locked behind extra time but that's not even the only problem with it.

Like. SSE. What the fuck were you thinking locking Gaited Horses behind a Training Feature. Like. The one thing which Still gets misinformed as being something riders Force On Horses? Something that real life people actually have to defend because gaited horses Are natural and Aren't trained Nevertheless abused to be gaited. And I'm mostly saying this because a lot of SSO players. do not know a lot about horses. And it's a very common misconception even in horse circles that gaits are Always forced upon horses and that simply isn't the case.

It's especially really fucking yikes with the Tennessee walker, which I'm pretty sure is 90% responsible for the misconception anyways, because while the Tennessee *is* naturally gaited when you say "tennessee walker" most people automatically think of Big Link which is basically the poster child of horse abuse and has been ever since it became a thing people knew about. So why in the absolute god damn hell is any, but Especially the tennessee walkers (who generally are a lovely representation of the breed because it actually features its natural gait) gaited horse in a subtle but already terrible way playing into this misconception.

Like it's just The most baffling choice ever and all of it is so clearly traceable to SSE wanting to make the feature big and significant but not having enough ideas to fill every other level with New Stuff so they resorted to locking old features anew which. Y'know. Turned out to be fucking stupid on so many levels.

[h0dgep0dgee]

Local shepherd's dwarf planet gets invaded by powers beyond her comprehension, she gets some funky robot hands and some Real Weird Roommates, more news at 11

[regicidal-defenestration]

For something that had such a fun first series, the mid-series episodes of Fall of the House of Sunshine were so aggresively. mediocre

[byooregard]

iwtv universe dashboard simulator

girlmand reblogged

😶‍🌫️gaysexinthecity Follow

not saying vampires are real but i think Daniel Molloy gets way too much shit . like if i was a pulitzer prize winning journalist in my seventies and some guy called me and was like im a vampire want an interview i wouldn't hesitate either. fuck man sure tell me about being a vampire. i'll believe you

🎆 magical-swiftie

reading Interview with the Vampire rn and Claudia and Madeline are sooo Long Face core

#now that i think of it a lot of tvl's songs fit this book really well #like #'she gave me life I gave her death'??? # that's so them!!!

🏞️ girlblogg1ng

btw if you're still listening to the vampire lestat, unfollow me now. and like, seriously consider why you're giving plays to a guy who appropriates ancient egyptian history for his vampire schtick, it's honestly sickening

#the vampire lestat #tvl #maintagging because people need to see this honestly #.txt

🌄sampire

keep seeing ppl try to cancel tvl for things hes said to his fans or how he talks about ancient egyptian mythology and not that song where he talks about fucking his mother. like im not crazy right he wrote a whole song about how he fucked his mother

💟 stingorarr

"we are your children/but what do you give us/is your silence/a better gift than the truth?" sounds like it should be some ancient Greek poetry but it's literally in a song by the vampire lestat!!!

it just hits so hard... like your parents gave you nothing but maybe the truth would be more unbearable than silence...

#tvl #the vampire lestat #twmbk #those who must be kept

sampire reblogged danielmxllxy

🌫️ beatlesrpf Follow

please tell me you guys arent serious about the vampire lestat. please tell me youre not stanning a man who wrote "im an actor in my makeup, i get fatter when we break up"

#guys please #this is worse than the tortured poets department

🤖 carrieblogging Follow

Based on your likes!

Hey, Tumblr, I need a little help here?

So, my best friend has been acting a little weird lately. Like, his sleep schedule has gotten really strange (stranger than normal 😅), and I haven't seen him without sunglasses on in a week?

His diet has changed, too, like he used to always be snacking whenever I'd call him, but now he doesn't eat anything that I can see.

He even cancelled our tickets to ComicCon!! I've been waiting to meet up with him for years, and now he's just bailed on me?!? I'm mad, but honestly more worried than anything....

#carrie speaks

🌌 marbellina124

guys I think I've found the vampire Armand at the MET 😏😂

#it doesn't match the dates from the book so like #yeah #but imagine.... #parisian mutuals you have a power that can be used

interview-with-the-glampire reblogged wormyworms

🪱 wormyworms Follow

mmm tbh the only reason i *don't* believe vampires are real is because if *i* was interviewing two vampires to write a book about their life? i would not be leaving that house without their fangs in my neck and eternal life. just saying

🌇 interview-with-the-glampire

understandable but have you considered. if I went to interview two vampires and got immortality and vampire sex out of that deal I wouldn't go around letting everyone know :/

danielmxllxy reblogged sampire

🌌 marbellina124

so were all in agreement he fucked that vampire right

#oh I think he fucked AT LEAST two of those vampires #iwtv #rb

[ratcandy]

ok fine temporary invite. because if i don't do it now i won't have time later/i'll forget/anxiety will bully me out of doing it. do not make me regret this or i swear to g

you have to react to the message in the rules channel to see the full server! just so no one gets confused when they see only two channels lmao

and if i noticeably messed anything up in the setup PLEAse let me know so I can fix it asap shdgkh

should i just throw caution to the wind and toss the server out here to see what happens

[comradeboyhalo]

(not maintagging this because it comes out more aggressive than it means to be. this is just an unserious rant.)

first of all, i do think qsmp as a whole has been kinder to cc!bad. the qsmp’s more dnd-like format is more inclusive in general, there’s net 0 creators who constantly swear at him, and the fandom does treat him better (the bar is low though). i’m more than grateful for that. 

that being said. i dislike how everyone acts like cc!bad was bullied into a corner on the dsmp. yes, a chunk of creators and fans only saw him as a “language” joke, thats an unfortunate fact. but i see a lot of people ignore the fact that cc!bad saw this, and in response created a whole fucking storyline that was designed to allow everyone to join in on it. 

bad, ant, and sam created the egg arc because they disliked the current political storylines and wanted to experiment with scifi-horror. this was after the badlands were formed, and after they realized that they were locked out of a lot of l’manberg conflicts. they didn’t sit around waiting for lore to be handed to them, they created it themselves. to act as though bad didn’t have the chance to create a complex character on the dsmp, or that every cc didnt take him seriously, is devaluing his work. the ccs involved in the egg arc did see c!bad as a threat. they respected his work, they participated in his lore. and there were a lot of them! you just maybe just didn't watch them.

if YOUR streamer only saw bad as a “language” joke, whatever. if YOUR side of the damp fandom never paid attention to egg lore, thats fine. but dont act like every cc did, or that the egg arc didn’t have a following. its true that it was very underrated, but cc!bad is also not this helpless baby who needs his hand held to create an engaging character. he saw he was the largest streamer among the egg arc ccs, and used that platform to bring everyone else up. he put in the fucking work, and it’s not his fault that people still refuse to acknowledge it.  

i see ex-dsmp fans praise the qsmp fandom for respecting bad, and then turn around and beg him to not reference egg lore. the same people who love karmaland, ordem paranormal, and 2b2t references are telling bad that he can’t reference his story, that he put work in. why? for dislike of streamers who weren’t even involved in it? you cant be happy bad is seen as his own person, then turn around and boil his dsmp work down to bigger streamers you dislike.

again, i don’t blame people for not watching the egg arc. i don’t think anyone should be forced to watch every storyline, or keep up with every cc. i don’t know. it’s just frustrating i guess? me and other egg arc fans were creating content, character analyses, and lore masterposts all to hype up c!bad and it’s not our fault yall ignored it and are just now seeing bad’s a good roleplayer! idk! i know everyone’s trying to be nice, i love everyone who’s new to bad’s content, i dont want to gatekeep at all. but your dsmp experiences are not universal. the way your streamers treated bad was not the way everyone treated bad. 

[fogwitchoftheevermore]

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

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

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

First of all, what was The Mechanisms?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pillar 1: Universal Story

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

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

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

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

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

Pillar 2: Casting Call (Narrative Role Filling)

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

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

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

Pillar 3: Story Echoes

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

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

Pillar 4: Narrative Imperative

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[struck-by-the-rain]

bored and on the train so have some miscellaneous karate joe headcanons, I've typed some of these out before but most r new! under the cut because it's long and idk if I wanna maintag this

the reading material is conflicted but in my head he's really good at karate! it does say somewhere that his style has a unique sense of rhythm and hes unsuccessful in competitions because his opponents can read his moves, but I think he gets past this by sticking to increasingly complex rhythms! he completes at the highest level that's there in the rh universe, like their equiv of the olympics or whatever. senior's standards for "mastering karate" are ill-defined and he probably keeps moving the goalposts (pun not intended) on joe

he's extremely overworked and over-stressed by his training, to the point where he has pretty bad chronic pain/repetitive strain injuries in his hands.

similarly im also considering hcing him being partially deaf in 1 ear from the first time his father introduced bombs into his training (& 1 exploded in his ear)

also he listens to music really loud on the reg and (like all my fav characters) hes autistic 2 me (so has audio processing issues to boot) so I think he needs 2 ask ppl to repeat themselves a lot

or he would, if he wasn't really shy and afraid of coming across as weak/useless/a disappointment! I've talked about that before but yeah. he masks it by trying to put on a tough guy persona & doesn't talk v much (he's a v expressive person as the games suggest but i think he actively tries to hide it most of the time)

he's a decent cook, having learned because seniors is so bad!! I need 2 give him a silly fav food other than pancakes (from honeybee remix...),,, my heart says he likes rly cosy things like soups and stews and everything

^ kinda fits vibes wise with how I like to draw him wearing comfy sweaters loads!! i think he's kinda winter-coded as a person but I'm not sure if it's actually his fav season or what!

in general he's not super fashion-y (makes it a challenge to draw him sometimes BC I love making characters dripped out),,, man lives in old band t-shirts and hoodies/sweaters and really knackered jeans

ohhh yeah this was a big 1 and I've said this before but he really likes the rockers (was a fan of jj's stuff pre-retirement and then when he comes back onto the scene w his student),,, I think he had a childhood crush on jj at one point

& I think he gets really into old games/consoles at some point, maybe because senior keeps them down in the basement in a box! he likes to take old consoles apart and figure out how they work

ummmmmm also he's like really scared of sucking at something (like a new hobby/sport or whatever)/disappointing others. idk I already said that

might think of more if so I'll just make an addition to this post

[syn4k]

Finally, I Can Maintag This After Nine Months

Hello everyone! This post is about my very long (80k) Empires S1 fanfiction, (i'll tend to the flame, you can worship the) ashes.

Ashes has been nine months in the making, and the last chapter was just posted today. It is twice as long as my previous longest published work and I made a lot of it up as I went.

The premise is this: The Rapture was three months ago, and Gem and Fwhip are on their way out of the world. They land for the night on the edge of the desert, and stumble upon a certain emperor, who's been missing for eight years and long presumed dead. Which is great! They found him! But... he's strangely quiet.

More details and a general FAQ for the fic under the cut.

Why does this fic have the Graphic Depictions of Violence warning and the Author Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings ratings applied at the same time? What does that mean?

I explain my full reasoning in a post here, but basically, I wanted to let people know that there was violence while also implying that there were also some other things that needed to be handled carefully that aren't necessarily covered by an Archive warning.

Ashes has the Canon Compliant tag attached, but this is a scenario that I've never seen in canon before.

This is correct. When I started writing this, my tag for this fic was #ashes au because I was pretty sure that I was going against canon with some of the details I was including. I added that tag later after realizing that even though some of the specific details didn't line up, it counted to me. (The tag stuck because I've linked it everywhere by now and don't want to change it.)

As for the post-canon status of this work, Ashes was mainly started because I felt like Pixl's ESMP s1 POV (which ended early because he got busy with another project; this happens to everyone and i do not hold it against him) deserved to be finished and so I set out to write it. Pix later said in an Empires S2 livestream and then in his s2 finale that every interpretation of what happened to the Copper King was correct, so I just went with it.

If I wanted to make fanart or fanfiction of this fanfic, could I do that?

There is a section for that on the website I made for Ashes! (I learnt HTML at 12am for this. I couldn't sleep.) Any questions you have that aren't answered by that, send me a message or an ask and I'll be happy to answer.

[loud-whistling-yes]

beloved mutual loud-whistling-yes please tell me the story on how pearl found your blog I am so curious now /nf

ok its been like 2 years since this happened i barely said a word about it but ok whatever pearl probably forgot about it i think i can say it now

October 24th, 2022

Pearl announces the release of her dl plushie

It's several months after dl's finale and 2 weeks until my birthday

My mental state in this period of time was solidly parked in the Pearl Insanity Zone

I want- no, I need that plushie

It's 138 ringgit

The plushie is 138 fucking ringgit

My mother refuses to let me buy the plushie

Not even as my birthday present

Not even if I offer to pay with my own money

I was this close to chewing up the furniture

I am not allowed to chew up the furniture

I choose instead to scream and cry on tumblr about it because well where else was I gonna cry about it

In a moment of stupidity and plushie-mourning grief

I maintag the post for personal sorting reasons

October 30th, 2022

It's exactly one week until my birthday

I get an ask in my inbox

It's tumblr user pearlescentmoo

Wait

TUMBLR USER PEARLESCENTMOO????????????????

I check the blog to see if this is a troll blog or something

NOPE

IT'S REAL

PEARLESCENT FUCKING MOON JUST SENT ME AN ASK

She says she feels bad that I can't get the plushie cause of the price

She wants to send me a discount code so I can get the plushie for free

Wait what

SHE WANTS TO SEND ME A DISCOUNT CODE SO I CAN GET THE PLUSHIE FOR FREE?????????????

I distinctly remember feeling like I was gonna throw up on my laptop

Oh yeah also losing my mind on whatsapp with my irl friends who have no idea what the fuck was going on

Problem is

She sent this to me via an ask

I'm pretty sure her DMs were closed at the time

Look man I wasn't gonna blast the fact Pearl's giving out plushies for free all willy nilly like that I have standards

I tried responding to her via answering the ask privately

The answer gets sent

I never get a reply

I'm pretty sure that tumblr, in it's true tumblr fashion, ate the ask

I never got the plushie

And that's the story of why Pearl definitely knows that my blog was titled "pearl my blorbo skrunkly poor pathetic meow meow"

It's been 2 years and I still want to die

[thecoolerliauditore]

Pearl and autism?

smth happened awhile back (before I joined the fandom so pre-LimL) where someone made a fairly generic post like. oughhh pearl less ant moon my little autistic animal girl or something like that you know the type. and pearl herself showed up in the replies to say she didn't appreciate being called autistic. She later apologized to OP and clarified that it was a point of discomfort for her, said that she would try to not step on peoples headcanons from then on but also asked us to clarify when we're talking about the character vs her as the CC.

It's like. to me a really neat middleground of understanding between "cc boundaries are stupid always" and "if you ship joel with jimmy you need to die"

It's also why I avoid maintagging Pearl posts more than other characters because I know I don't like putting c! in front of their names and that she is likely to have enough of a worldview gap from me in regard to not only the autism thing but also in terms of interpreting the narrative of the life series as a whole to find my posts invasive or otherwise uncomfortable. and I of course don't want to engage with the CCs at all but I also wouldn't want to make them feel strange.

She also more recently did the same thing albeit a little more playfully on a post calling her a lesbian (specifically in the context of shipping her with Scott) and asked them to use "c!" from then on to avoid potentially spreading misinformation.

[purpleleafsyt]

Apologies for not maintagging these other posts but for this AU post to make sense you need to read this post and ESPECIALLY this one so go do that.. be aware of the warnings though

So hey hi hello I'm making my own Hanahaki AU since I was the one who sparked up the conversation initially by reminding people that platonic hanahaki can exist :D

In the second post I went over motivations behind Soul, Whole, and an overview of how the headspace works for my HMS.

I mentioned Heart and Mind too, so, I want to go over more with them in this post because they're ALSO interesting

Warnings for everything under the cut: Self harm/destruction/sabotage, Unreliable narration in the form of poor mental ideologies, isolation, suicidal ideation, and gore/body horror. Hanahaki in this AU is a physical representation of issues found in poor mental health so anything that can spawn from that can here!

Unlike Soul, who started having typical symptoms early in the loop, before it developed into something more, Mind jumped almost immediately into the blossoming stage. It couldn't tear through metal, but vines, stems, and flowers certainly found it's way through the exposed parts of her joints. She knew early on that something, fundamentally, was wrong with her

It hurt, more than anything she can remember, to feel it wrap into and tear through her wires. She cursed herself for relishing in the pain, however. It makes her closer to being human, and thus real, if she is feeling pain, does it not?

The divide of being alive and nonliving is something she struggles with a lot, because she finds herself able to logically thing through both. She is a fracture to a whole, who is alive, and yet she is a robot, inorganic, an automaton freak

But that's besides the point. The flowers are confusing, inconvenient, and is halting any progress. How they're even able to grow within her mechanics is beyond her. The flowers make her weaker too, and is sometimes she cannot let her thirds be aware of, lest they take advantage of that said weakness(Because after all, why would any of them inform the others of their condition?)

She, despite everything, wants to understand them. She removes them, because she has to, and repairs herself. She's alone, so while difficult, it's safe. She experiments with the carefully removed flowers, and finds they can continue to grow apart from her so long as she continues to cultivate them. It's a distraction sure, but there has to be an answer somewhere in there. Besides, her garden is her own, hidden, safe, and the flowers are oh so beautiful thanks to her efforts

On the flip side, it took Heart longer to figure it out(Mind found out first, and Heart last. It left Soul, the root cause, in the middle, as usual)

He formed in the new loop, and got progressively sick. It caused agitation, as he kept getting worse, but he pushed through. Eventually, he threw up petals, and was rightfully horrified.

By this point, Mind and Soul had effectively isolated him(themselves, truly, but the real reason didn't matter) so the thoughts were free to creep in, he wasn't needed by them, nor wanted. It doesn't take long, due to the circumstances, for him to enter the blossoming stage.

The removal of the flowers is a violent act, as it always is with him, because like hell is he going to let his thirds see it. They're already treated like a burden to their thirds, why would he let them know it's worse? It's agony, but he does it anyways, all the while hiding himself further

He notices, despite the torn and ripped petals, that the flowers never wilt if he stays by them. They simply do not die in his presence, in his care. From what he can tell, they're vibrant and beautiful too.

He's allured by the flowers. He's not sure of his worth, or his life, but it becons him to take care of it, so he does. Because after all, he needs purpose, and if his thirds clearly do not need him anymore, then he can yield. He devotes himself to his garden, staying alive for the flowers to remain vibrant and beautiful.

The thirds still have to see each other because, after all, if one suddenly dissappears for too long it can cause suspicion to rise, but all of them remain unaware of each other's plights.

(That is, until very specific events happen, which I may go deeper into with another post. This one is dedicated to rounding out motive)