#mcyt fandom meta

[automaticdata]

out of curiosity what was that reddit post you mentioned on the mcyt quadrants post? i don't really use reddit so i've never seen it, but i'm curious to see the specific comment that sparked your theory:0

It actually wasn't just one comment, it's ... kind of a mix of a lot of different factors.

The reddit post I was referring to is here.

Some examples of the negative comments toward the Scar/Grian/Mumbo team up:

"A lot of comments are talking about this, so maybe it’s more popular than I realized, but the “boys club” of Grian, Mumbo, and Scar kind of grosses me out and can feel pretty exclusionary." (this one imo is the worst one I saw for negativity)

"The Grian-Scar-Mumbo collaborations have gotten so overdone that I skip half of them these days."

"Oh, Grian-Mumbo-Scar need to collab less, they are pretty much taking up the spotlight."

"I really think he needs to collab with more people. I genuinely liked that he collabed with etho, cleo, stress, even zedaph in season 6 and 7. These are fun to watch and genuinely I want to see of them. However, I am tired of the near basing with mumbo and scar."

(There was also some general Grian negativity, but that's not relevant to my theory and one of those comments will definitely make me go on an unrelated tangent if I quote it here.)

The reddit thread actually got locked and there's a mod post addressing it here. On that post, they say the hermits contacted the mod team directly about the post, with one of them saying the following:

"The thread caused a lot of pain to Hermits. Especially to one in particular and that person is already having a rough time right now. At the end of day we are only human. Criticism and suggestions are always important and good to hear even if it’s tough. But that felt like a pile on. A lot of us are having a hard time right now and stuff like that can be very demoralizing."

As for my "Scar definitely saw the post", one reddit user tried to find a silver lining and see some positivity that came from the post, and Scar commented on the post with the following:

"I'm going to be 100% honest and say that thread did more harm than good, especially at the start of the season. I hope people keep in mind that no one is a robot and can take a pile on of negativity all at once and come out better. Suggestions and feedback are always important and good to hear even if it’s tough. But there's a way to do that and that thread was not it." [source]

I know that doesn't seem super pissed like I may have implied, but considering Scar's comments on the subreddit are usually super positive and happy, that comment is just huge shift in tone from his usual comments.

My final piece of "evidence," if you can call it that, for my theory are the dates:

Reddit post: March 14th 2022 Mumbo's last Hermitcraft video before his hiatus: May 15th 2022 Double Life begins June 17th 2022

But yeah, if you put Double Life in the context of that reddit post, I think Grian's scream of "NOOOO" when he was paired with Scar makes a lot more sense. If he created Double Life as a creative way of getting away from the default Grian/Scar/Mumbo team up and then his plan fell apart with the game pairing him with Scar, him being so upset makes a lot more sense.

[automaticdata]

One thing I feel like is important to add, here: the hermits 100% are on r/Hermitcraft. Xisuma is a mod. There's a flair to mark the official accounts of the hermits. Several of them have commented on it, some of them seem to mostly use their reddit accounts for r/Hermitcraft.

So, when you're talking about cc interaction/reaction to criticism/etc, it's very important to realize that r/Hermitcraft is probably an exception to the rule. The mods on that subreddit are more likely to crunch down on criticism, and cc's are more likely to see posts.

(There's also one particular controversial post from awhile back which I have a ~conspiracy theory~ about; I'm pretty sure that post was what gave Grian the idea for Double Life (and is why he was so upset about being paired with Scar), and possibly contributed to Mumbo's s9 hiatus. Short version is, on an "unpopular opinions" post, some people did not like the s9 Scar/Grian/Mumbo team-up and were not being polite about it. While evidence is circumstantial for whether or not Grian and/or Mumbo saw it, Scar definitely knew about it, and while tone is hard to tell on the internet, imo he sounded pissed.)

wait I'm so curious what are the four 'sects' of mcyt ?

full disclaimer: this is something i've been thinking up myself largely based on my own personal experience with each aspect of the fandom, so if people want to correct things or add on, i'd be happy to see it! having said that,

this ⤴️ is a condensed look at my fandom crit autism. largely fuelled by the people's want to label mcyt fandom as one single united fandom when that is far from the case- never mind that plenty of smps has vastly different audience, eg. a preteen who's just getting into 3rd life after watching hermitcraft as a kid is not going to be rubbing shoulders with hardcore fans of epic smp, even within fandoms of singular smps there are still vast differences between the areas of discussion- leading to this labelling of four "sects"! there are other areas ofc, such as insta and tiktok, but i would consider these the main areas where mcyt is discussed (at least for hermitcraft/3l, which is my personal focus- i know dsmp was big on tiktok with cosplayers(?) but can't speak to it much) in depth, as well as the main areas ccs may look to in order to understand their fandom.

it's a massive simplification but the categories are as follows; ability to interact directly with ccs (and if the cc is likely to respond), ability to engage with criticism (both valid crit and more negative commentary, veering into hate), ability to engage with characterisation (as in, accepting that cubito is separate from cc, and what level they will accept that it- this also goes for shipping/nsfw content) and the primary age group (because that is in part relevant when dealing with youtube comments.)

to me this especially matters not just for ccs but for people within fandom to understand where certain sentiments (especially irt negative commentary) is coming from and how they can solve that- too often i see people on here picking fights over perceived negativity when it actuality that largely comes from reddit and yt. that's not to say it isn't possible here, but it is certainly less of an issue imo.

[conarcoin]

TW: Unreality, fictional death and violence

Me and my friends started our search for this fic in 2021. It is now 2024, and we have finally found our white whale, courtesy of an anonymous user who sent me a document containing the full text of this work.

SMPRonpa is both a highly controversial and incredibly impactful piece of fanfiction in regards to how the MCYT fandom would evolve in the years past. While the author buried it due to harassment, I believe preserving it is important as it is a huge part of MCYT fandom history. I hope that sharing this finding will help demystify the fic and some of the misconceptions about its content.

Just like with the reconstruction - this is being published with the intentions of media preservation and documentation of fandom history. We ask that you do not attempt to identify or contact the author of this work. They want to be left alone.

[antimony-medusa]

Okay so, the thing about Boundaries, and why people keep bringing them up over and over again to creators, is I think there's a bit of a desire for what people are doing here to not be weird. Cause like, the creator signed off on it, so like, I'm fine and you can't make fun of me or get mad at me.

And like, I understand the desire to not be made fun of or have people get mad at you, believe me, I know, but I think we have all just gotta accept that what we're doing is— it's a little weird, bro.

Like by definition what fandom is is getting a little too much into your thing. Fan comes from Fanatic. We all saw some block men and we went way too hard with it. And I think that sufficiently viewed from the outside, there is just no way to do any kind of transformational creation and it not be weird to the wrong people.

Like, taking a character and making them miserable? One of the honourable fandom traditions, whether you're whumping them or if you go hard into comfort at the end. For someone entirely outside of fandom, that's just like why are you DOING that, bro, and when you add in the fact that we're using people's real names (well, gamer tags), there's no way for that not to be odd. "The creator said it was okay" is not going to make people go ??? any less. (Let me emphasize that this is fine, it's just like, also, you bring that up on the bus and peope go ????)

Let's look at fluff. You want to write about your characters in a coffee shop au? You want to write about your characters in a cuddly family dynamic, taking care of each other? You want to age down characters and write kid fic where they learn to face the challenges of the world and it's just so cute and you love them so much even if nothing really bad happens? I promise you that my non-fandom parents are gonna be like "why are you spending your time on that" and again, if you throw in the "is this real people" (it isn't, but that is a delicate thing to explain), you're looking at people staring at you in discomprehension and backing away.

Shippy stuff. Again, one of the honourable fandom traditions. You just love your guys and you want to write about how much they love each other (or maybe make it tragic about how only one person can make it out of the cactus ring). You spent all this time thinking about their feelings writing it out. You write out a kiss scene. It makes you flail happily. Most people don't do that! Absolutely fun to do? Yes! Something you can bring up as an ice breaker at the company potluck? Probably not! We are too much into the characters, and that's fine, but it's still gonna look a bit odd from the outside!

Plotty gen. You're writing an entire new story, but you're taking existing characters for it? Like it's original fiction, but you're using existing characters? Why not just write original fiction <I have had this conversation. Oh, you're writing a story about minecraft characters, and they— they get tortured? Like it starts with them being tortured? <also a fun conversation to be in.

I'm mostly thinking about this from the fanfiction side, but art, meta— we are just getting into things way too much. We're spending hours on this stuff. We drew the creators minecraft sonas in maid dresses. There are millions of words of fiction on the archive about every conceivable universe of good/bad things happeing to the characters. It is a primary hobby, where I could be learning piano or paying attention to sports. And I'm not, and like, that's fine.

I am here to tell you that people absolutely might find what we're doing weird, and also it's entirely fine. I just ran a poll about the sexiest minecraft character that got 68k votes on the most voted poll. And then I had to explain that to my doctor to explain why I didn't really have a normal baseline for the past week to compare to. (Doctor visibly thought it was weird but he was also like "you go" because he's a good doctor, but I had to start with explaining minecraft because he knew NOTHING about what I was talking about.) You just gotta accept that fandom is for a small segment of the population, we are all having fun with ourselves, and it's for us, it's not for the general population, and stop trying to make it palatable to people who don't care to understand. People on this site keep saying "racist white boys" and then they don't have the intellectual curiosity to pursue further as to why maybe that's not true, having a boundaries post is not going to make them nicer. It's fine. They're being jerks, we're just having fun.

And like, stop trying to get the creator to sign off on it. Accept that sometimes we're being weird and they can look at it if they want to see the weird fanatics going too hard with the characters. They will tell us if we're doing something they want to stop associating with their name, and up until that point, just accept that what we're doing is weird, and have fun with it.

We're weird.

Be more weird 2k23.

Have fun with it.

I wrote a time travel AU in DMs with a friend last night about a bird man and a minecraft piglin. Not normal. It's FINE.

[syn4k]

oh ok this is going to be an entire essay. Oh fuck. Okay yall buckle up i have a lot of thoughts on this topic let's go

Inventory Headcanons in the MCYT Universe, specifically relating to Fanworks and Common Interperetations of the Minecraft Inventory in art and writing

+ my personal ideas for how it works because yippee autism

Part 1: How the Minecraft Inventory Works Inside the Game

Okay, starting off simple here. If you are reading this, then you probably know how the Minecraft inventory system works. I do not care. I am covering all of the bases here.

This is a screenshot of the Minecraft inventory! (I am aware that it was taken before the update that added the offhand slot, but bear with me here.)

All of the slots that are shown here except for the armor slots can hold any 64 items or blocks, with exceptions for containers of liquids, tools, armor, and weapons (nonstackable). Exceptions are also made for snowballs, eyes of ender, ender pearls, and buckets, which stack up to 16. The crafting grid can contain any 64 items as well, but these don't stay in place after you exit the inventory screen.

All of these slots are carried physically on the player itself, which has caused a LOT of discussion amongst the Minecraft community on how the fuck this 6-foot-tall square man is able to hold uhhhh [checks notes] 4 billion pounds of gold. Damn.

The answer, naturally, is that this is a very simplistic video game not meant to be realistic at all (it's cubes, goddamnit) and Steve can just do that. Moving on.

For the purposes of this essay, we are going to be completely ignoring the physical feats of this inventory and focus specifically on the mechanics of it.

1a: The Boring Stuff (Mechanics of How it Actually Works)

The inventory can be accessed by pressing a button on your keyboard, Switch joycon, phone, Samsung Smart Fridge, VR controller, or whatever the fuck you guys are playing Minecraft on these days. Here's a list of the default settings used to open the Minecraft inventory.

PC or anything with a keyboard: E

Xbox 360, Xbox One controller: Y

PlayStation 3, 4, and Vita controllers: The green triangle

Nintendo Switch and Wii U (wait WHAT): X

Mobile Devices: The … on the right hand side of the hotbar

Items go into the hotbar first when picked up and into the top-right corner of the inventory first if the inventory is empty and the hotbar is full.

You can close the inventory by pressing more buttons on the keyboard which I won't include here. Just look it up.

1b: Shulker Boxes and +NBT Chests

The shulker box is a placeable item in game that is obtained by visiting the End. It has 27 item slots, which is 9 less than the full player inventory, and unlike chests and barrels it does not drop all of its contents onto the floor upon being broken. You cannot access the contents of shulker boxes while they are inside of your inventory.

If you placed 27 stacks of gold blocks into 36 shulker boxes and placed all of those inside of your inventory, that would be a fuck ton of gold in there. This is a well-known fact.

Also in Creative mode you can middle-click a filled chest and get the entire chest plus its contents right in your inventory which will be there which I wanted to mention. Oh right. Creative mode. I should pr

1c: The Creative Mode Inventory

You can access the entirety of the game's materials in Creative mode except for a select few of them, which players have naturally figured out how to get anyways.

1d: INFORGOT TO MENTION THIS BUT YOU CAN MAKE ACTUAL MODIFICATIONS TO THE IN-GAME INVENTORY.

With resource and data packs, you can change the color and opacity of your inventory. You can also hover over shulker boxes to view their contents without having to actually place them on the ground and open them.

Modifications to the game (colloquially shortened to "mods") can also increase the inventory size. I will not be focusing on these because the possibilities are literally endless here and I am tired.

Part 2: A Slightly Unhinged Analysis on Fanworks and Fanart on General that I have Pulled Straight Out my Ass.

Okay. So we have an inventory. How the hell does this translate to fanart, fanfiction, etc?

For the answer to this, we are going to have to take a look at how people actually take the universe of Minecraft and translate it to a semi-realistic or realistic style. You thought it was going to be a straightforward post about interperetations of inventory in Minecraft but it was me, Dio! I should really turn this post into a video essay.

2a: Canon Compliance, Canon Complicity, and This Is Only Technically Minecraft but I Have To Add It Here Anyways for the Sake Of My Autism

Generally in fanworks, there is a scale on how strict the work keeps to the actual canon interperetation of the universe. This also applies to the stories being told within the universe but don't worry about it I'm not poking that lion today.

The points I have labeled on the scale (really oversimplified) are:

Type 1 (Hold very strict to the game mechanics and how the inventory works within the game.)

Type 2 (Still within the universe of Minecraft, or in a setting that at least resembles Minecraft, but with some creative liberties taken with how game mechanics and inventories work- sometimes completely ignoring them for the sake of whatever the creator chooses.)

Type 3 (Not even in Minecraft at all. I'm only including this here for the amount of characters from roleplays that are placed in other video game settings or just fuckin' into real life.)

I think those explain themselves and if they don't then I have failed as a writer.

Part 3: The Part People Actually Clicked On The Readmore For (Types of Inventory Descriptions and Depictions in Fanworks)

3a: Text-Based Works (Fanfiction and Meta-Posting)

Generally in Minecraft-based or Minecraft-adjacent settings (type 1 and 2 works), authors either do not mention the inventory at all, bring it up in passing but do not explain how it works, forego the inventory entirely in favor of real-world storage solutions like pockets, bags, and boxes (almost entirely restricted to Type 2 works), or come up with creative in-universe ways to explain the inventory, some of which use the Minecraft enchantment system.

Authors who do not mention the inventory or mention it but don't explain how it works in the universe can't really be expanded on due to its meaning meant to be interpreted by the reader.

Of the authors who do elaborate on their inventory systems, there are a couple ways I have seen this done:

Real-world solutions (pockets, bags, etc), sometimes used in conjunction with fantasy solutions.

Edited real-world solutions, such as infinite pockets or small bags always on the player's person.

Sigils, magical objects, enchantments, and things of that sort that allow the player to access their inventory via gestures or tactile movements. This also includes the use of holographic displays and in-game commands.

Straight-up summoning or storing the relevant items at will.

This gets an honorable mention because it's fucking hilarious but there was this one tumblr post like "the player says e and teleports into a pure white room"

I KNOW there's more out there but these are the examples I've seen around Tumblr and ao3.

3b: Visuals-Based Works (Fanart, including comics, animatics, and posters)

Most visual interperetations of the Minecraft inventory are type 1 or just use the "real-world solutions" option. You don't see a lot of these in the wild in my experience, but from the things I've seen, some popular visualizations of the Minecraft inventory include:

Holograms and command screens, often used in conjunction with the in-game chat as a multitool

Straight-up summoning at will

Backpacks! People draw them to look SO COOL on a character-by character basis.

all of these designs fucking slap so hard by the way i dont make the rules. mcyt artists are out here doing the work of renaissance painters for zero dollars and next to zero credit

3c: Other Forms of Media (Live-Action Adaptions and Plays, I Guess?)

I have ZERO idea how someone would translate the Minecraft inventory to a real-life setting but I assume the result would be a Type 3 real-world solution, due to real life not having magic and also not being in the Minecraft universe.

If anyone ever figures out how to carry 162 million pounds of gold on their person without instantly eating shit and dying, firstly I respect and fear you secondly hit me up my back fucking sucks and I have too many books in my backpack at any given time.

3d: Customization Within Universes and Cross-World Universal Items

Many artists in the MCYT fandom, whether their wheelhouse be writing or visual art, have been in several subsections of the fandom or are actively in several at once. Due to the overlap in creator circles and the fact that Minecraft is over ten years old at this point, this is quite normal and the same creator behind a character may be on several different servers or have several different characters currently being played at the same time.

Due to this, many artists and writers have developed different designs for several iterations of the same character, for lack of a better way to explain it. This can be expressed in clothing changes, nonhuman characteristics, and, a common one that popped up alongside the rise of the DSMP, universal communicators.

Communicators are not in the game as a physical object. Rather, they are an entire fan-made concept that allows the characters to chat universally across a server they're in, no matter how far away. (Hermitcraft is an interesting case here. I'm looking at you, Solar. I saw that radio range comment in DATD.)

Since inventories do not share their contents across multiple worlds, the same is also true for most fanworks including them. Nevertheless, there are some exclusions and more permanent items on some characters, varying between artist and character. Some of these include:

Emotionally significant items (i.e ones that remind them of friends, family, lovers, etc)

Little trinkets hung from belts or keychains

Items that aren't really affixed to the character but are either shown in the character's Minecraft skin or are prominent in fanon (i.e, Slimecicle's glasses, Xisuma's helmet having admin-y properties, Pixlriffs' Empires SMP Season 2's character having glasses and sometimes a knee brace)

These items and how they may apply across some servers but not all could be an entire post of their own. Fanon is huge and I'd love to document that but that is Not the point of this essay. Maybe later.

On the subject of different designs for different characters, I'd like to bring up:

Sort of relevant to section 3d: different inventories depending on characters

Basically, some characters could have bags. Some have holograms. Some have magical tattoos or sigils that let them access it. Some defy all known laws of God or man and do some crazy shit with their inventories just because they can. It all depends on the artist or author's preferences, baby!

This often is related to headcanons and character designs. It can also vary for server, universe, etc.

Which NOW brings me to,

Section 4: Thoughts? You have thoughts on this? Share your thoughts maybe?

yeah i have no consistent anything for anything. really it just depends on the setting and what i'm in the mood for.

for example, in our Type Two fics like Ashes AU and Twice, generally the characters use real-world solutions with modifications (enchanted bags, etc). But for quicker oneshots and crackfics, we tend to elaborate on inventory space and let the game mechanics do all the work.

The Summary:

Fandom is huge and theres so much layers to this shit its legitimately unreal. I could write an entire thesis paper on the MCYTblr side of things alone and I might just do that when I hit college, if I ever do. For now, though, I'm just gonna sit here wondering why the fuck I dedicated an entire section to how the minecraft inventory works like what the fuck dude. why did i do that.

thanks for reading. i write words. follow perhaps if you would like to see more?

[automaticdata]

I am probably not going to be making sense here because I'm writing this out right after waking up at Way Too Effing Early o'clock but like. I have Thoughts.

I actually have deleted and restarted this because the original kept going of in 5 different directions so here we go, let's try again.

I think the "FH is toxic but DD isn't" belief comes from a couple different things. The first is that the DD fandom seems to have assimilated the toxicity into the popular fanon narrative of the couple so well that it's considered plot or angst or both, while the FH fandom, as far as I've seen, hasn't done the same with FH toxicity. The second is the difference between the relationships of the content creators themselves, and how that affects how their characters interact.

Like, in DD fanfic, there are frequent tropes of Grian feeling guilty for killing Scar in 3L, and him purposefully trying to distance himself from Scar because of it, and that in turn hurting Scar. There's also Grian either not realizing he loves Scar or thinking he has to protect Scar from himself, while Scar doesn't tell Grian how he feels because he thinks it's unrequited. Another common trope is Grian is Bad At Expressing Emotions. In DD fic, Cub frequently has Issues with Grian because he thinks Grian hurts Scar. Like, these are all elements of toxicity which become part of the fanfic plots. And if you don't believe me, let me like mention some of the fics that have these tropes:

"Closer to Another Shore" - Grian protecting Scar from himself, Scar being hurt by it, Cub disapproving because Grian hurts Scar, Grian feeling guilty for killing Scar in 3L

"Honeycomb" - Grian doesn't realize he has feelings for Scar, Scar thinks his feelings are unrequited, miscommunication, Cub disapproving because Grian hurts Scar

"What to Expect When You're Not Expecting" - Grian protecting Scar from himself, Scar being hurt by it, Cub disapproving because Grian hurts Scar, miscommunication

"Angel Ellipsis, Devil of Dots" - Grian feeling guilty for killing Scar in 3L, also bonus Grian having trust issues because of Scar's betrayal in 3L

"Bread and Butterflies" - Grian feels guilty for killing Scar in 3L, Grian Is Bad At Expressing Emotions

"Somewhere Between the Surface and the Sea" - Miscommunication, Scar thinking his feelings and unrequited, Grian Is Bad At Expressing Emotions

"Everything I Loved and Feared" - Grian feeling guilty for killing Scar in 3L

"Believing in the Country of You and Me" - Grian feeling guilty for killing Scar in 3L, Grian is Bad At Expressing Emotions, and just .... honestly this entire fic is an expression of like, a lot of toxic elements of their relationship. "Their codependency was back in full swing" "You need to stop seeing affection as a personal attack" etc.

EDIT: adding "There Are Monsters Nearby" to this as I just finished binging it. Grian is Bad At Expressing Emotions, Scar is hurt by it (and some other BS Grian pulls), Cub disapproves because Grian hurts Scar, miscommunication, also Double Life cheating shenanigans.

Like, these are elements of toxic DD that are baked into the plot of fanfics. They get assimilated into angst for the ship. And it's not just fanfic - even animations play up angsty versions of DD that get into the toxic elements. One of my favorite DD animations includes shots of various times Grian has killed Scar, for example. You have animations like this one which use the toxicity to create angst.

So you have a lot of these "toxic" elements of the relationship that are baked into the fanon. At a certain point, these toxic elements are expected in fanfic.

And you just ... don't have that in the FH stuff I've seen. Part of this I think is by the very nature of the toxicity. Grian tries to distance himself from Scar because he knows their relationship isn't healthy, which is where a bunch of the toxicity there comes from, but Scott - both as a content creator and as a character - frames FH as a good thing. He doesn't see any issue win how he treated Jimmy. He's even encouraged others to treat Jimmy similarly. And his character is a lot less ... idk, self-deprecating than Grian's is? Like, character!Grian says stuff like "why does everything I touch break", as well as ... pretty much the entire rest of that episode. You don't have that with Scott.

In the FH fic I've read, there was a lot less internal conflict. The conflict tended to be external. You don't have the kind of misunderstandings, conflict between personalities, etc. in FH fic that you have in DD fic. You don't have anyone getting protective of Jimmy the way DD fics often have Cub getting protective of Scar. I didn't even know Martyn disapproved of FH in 3L until it was mentioned on one of Martyn's streams (I think his AITA one?) because I haven't finished Martyn's perspective. It's never brought up in FH fic, as far as I've seen.

I think in terms of fan-created content, that's why toxic FH stuff seems so disruptive to some while toxic DD doesn't get as much attention. Toxic DD is already there; it's in the ship's DNA. But toxic FH seems fundamentally different than fanon FH. It's seen as criticism rather than plot or angst, while in DD fic has no problem integrating toxic elements into plotlines.

And I don't think that's entirely the fandom's fault. Like I mentioned, content creator Scott also frames FH as unproblematic, but - I'd actually say it's more than that. There's a difference between the content creators that affects the relationships between the characters.

To be clear on a few points, I am not saying Scott and Jimmy aren't friends IRL - they are. But I would argue that they aren't as close as Scar and Grian, or Grian and Jimmy. Like, on a Phasmo stream when Grian was explaining why he's so tired of Scar's Star Wars talk, he mentioned that he and Scar talk basically every day. I am in the same time zone as Scar. That's an eight hour time difference. I don't even talk every day to the friends I have in the same time zone! And it shows in their interactions. Scar is comfortable trolling Grian in a way Jimmy is not comfortable trolling Scott. Iirc (and I can't find it on the VODs so I'm going from memory here), GIGS started because Grian wanted to play with Impulse and Skizz, and he persuaded Scar to play with them. Scar has talked about Grian helping him improve as a content creator, and Grian has expressed his admiration of Scar's builds, leaving heartfelt messages like "everything you build contains a part of your beautiful soul." Gamers' Outreach was, without question, Scar's big project for Hermitcraft charity stuff, but Grian stepped up and helped Scar with organizing and managing it. Like, words cannot express how awesome their IRL friendship is imo?

Meanwhile, while Jimmy and Scott are friends, it's not on the same level. When you hear about Jimmy hanging out with people IRL, it's usually Grian or Joel. Jimmy and Scott don't even gravitate to each other in their series like Jimmy and Martyn do (examples: Evo, Emp s2, Secret Life, New Life). Like, compare when Martyn and Jimmy had similar origins in New Life to when Jimmy and Scott had similar origins in the same series - there is a huge difference there.

It's also worth noting that the kind of dynamic Jimmy has with his friends is really, really easy to label as bullying. You can see this especially in one of the Raft streams Jimmy did, where he actually had to explain to his chat that they were just having a good time. Despite this, with the people Jimmy is close to IRL, the accusations of bullying seem to happen less. Like, Grian is probably the worst at teasing Jimmy, but most of the time people see this as friendly rather than bullying. I don't think this is just because Grian is a very popular Youtuber - I think it's because he and Jimmy are genuinely close. Like, Grian literally helped Jimmy move to a new house. He attends Jimmy's birthday parties. You see how playful they are with each other IRL during the charity livestream, but it also happens on Minecraft, too. When Jimmy is a special guest to play Decked Out, he immediately goes to have Grian as his mentor, and it's only because both Grian and Tango tell him to pair with Etho that he does. His immediate impulse, though, is to go to Grian.

That kind of underlying affection shows in videos. It shows with Scar and Grian, and it shows with Jimmy and Grian. But I honestly don't think Jimmy and Scott are as close IRL, and that makes it easier to not see underlying affection, even when the characters are at odds.

Like, I mentioned the difference between Martyn and Jimmy in New Life vs Jimmy and Scott, and I think this is one of the easier ways to see how an IRL relationship can impact the character relationship. Martyn and Jimmy start showing off their abilities to each other, Martyn agrees to be like an ice mentor, etc. But when Jimmy and Scott have similar abilities, Jimmy approaches Scott immediately starts showing him he's better than Jimmy? And that comes up a lot when they're talking. "Are you the B-text Scott Smajor?", "Why do I have to be the sidekick, why can't we be equal?" "Because we're not equal, Jimmy, your main thing is that you're fast and you're still slower than me", "See you later, B-text Scott". Like, Jimmy and Martyn genuinely seem like they're having fun with each other, but with Scott and Jimmy it just feels like some teasing and that's it.

Like, in case anyone wants to compare:

Jimmy becoming Cold Guy

Jimmy becoming Fun Guy

I feel like with Jimmy especially, the IRL closeness really affects how the relationships come across on video. Jimmy's dynamic with his friends tends to be them teasing him, which can very easily come across as bullying to chat. You actually see this in one of the Raft VODs (maybe the first one? I can't remember) where Jimmy actually had to reassure chat that his friends weren't bullying him and that it was all in good fun. However, I think it's easier for it to come across as friendly teasing when Jimmy and the person are fairly close. I see less of people saying Grian and Martyn bully Jimmy than I do people saying Scott and Fwhip bully him, for example. Jimmy is friends with all of them, but I think it isn't controversial to say he's closer IRL to Grian and Martyn, and it shows.

And so when comparing FH and DD's toxicity, there's this element of the IRL relationships to it in that we, the audience, get the underlying affection between Scar and Grian come across a lot more clearly than the underlying affection between Scott and Jimmy. We can tell Grian and Scar are close IRL, even when they're playing a character. It's not as obvious with Scott and Jimmy, so when FH's toxicity is pointed out, there's less confidence in the foundation of the ship, if that makes sense. With DD, we know at the end of the day, character!Grian and character!Scar care about each other deeply, despite their flaws; we don't have that kind of rock-solid reassurance with character!Scott and character!Jimmy, because the content creators aren't as close.

(I have literally now spent hours on this wtf this is why I should not try to do rambly posts first thing in the morning)

i always find it so funny that the number one argument against toxic fh interpretations I see are comparisons to desert duo, followed up with “but no one’s calling them toxic!!” like boy do I have news for you

[ambroise-framboise]

Today I present you : The ACCIDENTAL WATCHERIFICATION OF GRIAN au

Aka I’m going back to a beloved trope of mine, accidental deitification but I slap it on my current interest, Hermitcraft.

SO !

We all know the “Grian is a Watcher” AU (well, lots of us do know it, it’s a pretty famous fanon grian thing, be it in fanfics or fanart and such).

Most of the time I see it, it’s a “Grian was a normal player, but got yoinked in Evo by the (evil/neutral/benevolant, choose your favorite flavor) Watchers tm. They (tried to/did) turn him into one. Sometimes he has to escape because they’re Bad, sometimes they’re just annoying. He gets cool powers and eyes, wings sometimes and Purple.”

This is a classic. BUT ! What I am suggesting now is something I haven’t really seen before, which is a shame bc it’s ; interesting, funny imo, and also meta. (If it exists, I missed it oopsies sorry lmao)

What if Grian, after Evo, did NOT become a Watcher bc he got turned into one by them. In fact, the existance of Watchers is debatable here. He might never have actually met one, and their exact role/meaning doesn’t really matter. They might even not exist ! That’s up to you.

Grian, is an avian/shapeshifter whatever, living now on Hermitcraft. He does his little videos, streams, whatever you want to make him a somewhat public figure (like Hermits often are in the mcyt multiverse). What matters is that for SOME reason, people BELIEVE he is a Watcher HIDDING HIS TRUE SELF. And BECAUSE OF THEIR BELIEF he gradually actually BECOMES ONE.

The more he tries to protest, convince them it's not the case, the more they think they're right, and the worse it get (like, he starts to physically manifest Watcher traits (preconceived ones, THE EXISTENCE OF WATCHERS AND WHAT THEY ARE EXACTLY/MEAN BARELY IMPACTS IT, bc his transformation, DEIFICATION is all hinged on players’ belief. Not actual facts.) Anyways, man starts to get the “typical” (aka stereotypical) Watchers traits as times goes on, which only make things worse because SEE SEE, he has the eyes and the purple, clearly they were right !

It would be both a comedy of errors, misunderstandings, coincidences AND some good old horror (body and other kinds), bc Grian DID NOT sign up for this.

Also this is funnily meta because he gets turned into a Watcher by the true watchers, who most of the time don’t realise who/what they are, and the power they hold. It’s a bit of a self-fulfiling prophecy, you see. And Grian is the unwilling puppet dancing to the whims of forces he cannot control.

I gotta write a fic about this, this is a really neat concept. Comedy and horror my beloveds, especially when they go hand in hand.

(If YOU want to write something yourself, or draw idk, feel free to !!! just @ me so I can see it and, like, cry or something about it in the comments.)

This was not supposed to be a meta concept. This was supposed to be a funny “ahah, he got turned into a watcher because of a misunderstanding and the power of belief”. I actually have a fic more or less based on that kind of idea in another fandom, bc I was part of a whole ass event where we used that kind of concept.

I looove the "beliefs of others influence what/who your are" tropes, be it in the positive, negative, literal or not way Shoutout to my fav fanfic of a long long time for having introduced me to that concept (not a HC one, it’s Make a Wish, a HP fic on ffnet from the early 2000s lmao, truly a classic) Pls interact about this, brain is going brrrr and I needed to share it.

(Also this came to be after reading a few fics where someone on HC worships Xelqua/Grian, who is like pls stop I don’t wanna hear your prayers wtf. I thought it’d be funny if they did pray to Xelqua but Grian wasn’t actually a Watcher. And then the potential of The Power of Belief tm hit me like a brick and here we are.)

[evil-mcytblrconfessions]

There needs to be an MCYTblr confess blog taxonomist like how there's a gimmick blog taxonomist

.

[iusedteabag]

What I cannot stand about the mcyt fandom, the dsmp corner specifically is the constant self-censorship. Character names are written weird, so are the ships names, which are lowkey mid on average, and on ao3, fuckers don't tag characters, don't tag fandom, don't tag ships, or it's that stupid censoring of the ship names and characters. Instead of proper tagging, they put little condescending "no <3"s and "You searched for this" where those tags should be. Yeah no shit, I was searching for it, I had to dig through utter BULLSHIT to get here bitch. "Searched for it", scoff, that's what the TAGS are usually for, to filter for stuff that you're SEARCHING for

I can barely find shit on ao3, fuck all on tumblr, which, what even?? With as big as the dsmp fandom is/was, I expected so much more???

Of course there's a pattern to it, of fucking course I'm aware of it. It's the "pRoBlEmAtIc" ships that get this treatment and the "bOuNdArY bReAkInG" RPF fics that you can't even DIFFERENTIATE from DSMP ones because neither TAG THE FUCKING FANDOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And DSMP has modern setting aus! untagged fandom, and it feels like fucking Russian roulette whether or not I get what I'm searching for!!!!

DSMP AND MCYT RPF FANDOMS, I BEG OF YOU! I IMPLORE YOU!

[hopalongfairywren]

Alone at The Edge Of A Universe Humming a Tune

aka, a dsmp meta--ish post in 2023, god help us all. (And No, I'm not leaving the fandom) I don't even know what to say how do you even begin with something you loved so much and spent so little time with. Like, being in the fandom since the beginning to the canon end is such a profound experience but coming late? Man. I came after the fractures started showing and the lore discourse had gotten brutal and everyone was tired. I think I only really got into the plot itself around the time of the revengers and I only really joined the fandom here on tumblr around this time actually. And we know how the story went into rapid decline following the prison break and everything afterwards was a slow and brutal descent, but that was my first exposure to the DSMP, when arguably most of it's flaws were being shown and discussed and talked about and even though I tried so hard I still fell in love. And I defended it. You can see so many old posts of mine defending the lore, saying how I had faith the writers knew what they were doing and would address *story problem 1234* and up until like, june. Of 2022. When season 2 was first announced and already c!Wilbur's and c!Quackity's stories were coming to an end and people were pissed about a possible world reset, I tried to tepidly defend it saying that probably wouldn't happen and when it was said on twitter BY the creator, I took that at face value. And maybe it was my fandom honeymoon phase entering overdrive, maybe it was copium to try and convince myself I wouldn't be torn up over it one day, maybe I was just desperately wishing for someone to agree with me. That I hadn't come to a fandom too late. And I wouldn't trade it for the world. Most of my hyperfixations have lasted literal years, and I don't see my dsmp one ending anytime soon. I also tend to go back to them, if the occasional warrior cats post is anything to go by. That I would be with other fans who'd still be interested and write and draw and create and I wouldn't be alone. Maybe I was scared of losing that so soon after I first found something so comforting. I wasn't alone though. I've made so many friends and have so many good memories and hell I made my own fan-content. I have over 200 people who liked my stupid mcyt blog enough to follow! And now that's come to pass and people and blogs who were cornerstones of my early fandom experience have gone dark or deactivated, and many of my mutuals have simply found new interests I don't share and moved on entirely or mostly. And I'm still here, and it's okay. I find it somewhat funny and ironic how my experience in fandom, in away, mirrored c!ghostboo, one of the first characters who joined alongside me really and who I payed close attention to regarding lore discourse, ended up in the Nether somewhat alone, with just the thing he loved at the end of canon.

[jazhand]

A couple reminders for younger fans of things

(This post is made specifically with the MCYT fanbase in mind, but it applies to just about any fandom, especially around people who do internet stuff for a living)

1. Idolizing someone is just as dehumanizing as demonizing them. Your favorite creator is a human being just like anyone else. You can look up to them, but don't put them up on a pedestal.

2. Your favorite creators don't owe it to you to honor your ideas and suggestions. It's super cool if they do, but they're not obligated to.

3. There's always a chance that your favorite creator is going to start making different content than what they became your favorite creator for. They're humans; humans change. Whether they stay your favorite creator or not is up to you, and there's no right or wrong answer.

4. Your favorite creator is (probably) an adult, and their friends are also (probably) adults. and if they're working on something together you can bet they talk about everything that happens behind the scenes. You don't need to go to bat for them when something in their content goes in a way you don't like.

5. Branching off 4, do not send hate to your favorite creator's friends when something happens that you don't like. Nobody likes seeing their friends receive hate.

6. Overall just be respectful. That's all.

[landofspaceandrainbows]

yep! ( books have longer fandoms all the time, and even on the MC front, hey, ppl are still making stuff about 3rd life last life and double life, not mentioning like mianite or SMPEarth or manhunt or minecraft mondays. so rock the fuck out! )

Not to out myself as someone that’s been on tumblr for too long, but I’m so sad to see this new trend of people saying “I like this thing, even though the show isn’t airing anymore.” Like? That’s how things work! Keep enjoying them! Art doesn’t just vanish when it’s not airing, and it wasn’t made to be exclusively viewed live! 10+ years ago, the idea of saying “Ah, I’m still here in this fandom 2 years after the show was cancelled 😳” would have been BONKERS!

All these kids saying “It’s so sad the shows gone,” no it’s not!!! I saw your fanart yesterday! Last week you told me about my favorite character’s music playlist!!! I saw them running around in your AMV!

Where’s the longevity?? It was made for you!!! Not TV!!! It was made for keeps!!! Keep it!!! Please!!! That’s how art stays alive!!!

[fogwitchoftheevermore]

i know i’m a broken record on this but it’s true and it haunts me. mcyt fans you guys would’ve loved the mechs fandom circa 2020 and the concept(s) of narratomancy.

[conarcoin]

the concept of "lore" ruined discussion of mcrp because like. people use it to mean some kind of weird hybrid of plotline and worldbuilding but ONLY if the server is drama-focused otherwise it doesn't count i guess.

so you get people saying like. hermitcraft isn't a lore server. smplive isn't a lore server. sdmp isn't a lore server. and it's like yeah this is true because "lore server" is a meaningless slop category you guys made up. they very much have plotlines and worldbuilding though 💀

[sculkcensor]

overall, QSMP was a great concept and the admins and creators were wonderful. I've never been super active in MCYT fandom (I was an old yogscaster then a hermitcrafter only, so I've not really seen this type of stuff from a fandom perspective lol and I knew basically none of the creators beforehand) but it's been super fun.

ofc I wish things had panned out differently in meta, but the actual heart of QSMP was great and I've had a really great time with yall in the fandom. I'll be vaguely sticking around in the way that I do with all fandoms lol

I also hope the creators continue to do stuff together and maybe, hopefully in the future when things are better, maybe we can get another go at it :)

[landofspaceandrainbows]

(in a bit of a tight spot time wise so this will be short - ish for the minute) - yea. i've been thinking of this a little too. i think this is pretty clearly true, in part because MCYT is obviously a genre (or a medium even) not like.... one thing. because there's more than one show. or rather it's *at least* two genres, because let's face it, a lot of MCYT on tumblr these days is MCRP ( minecraft roleplay ) which is cool. so there's mcrp which is a genre and mcyt classic which could be split down further into a few genres. and like, each SMP is it's own world/story within MCRP. (and emerging themes and genre conventions apply. off the top of my head, common themes for SMP stories can include doing a thing for friends, mixed loyalties, tragedy, social commentary, etc. but i used the word "emerging" because it is!) so yea, i see some similarities between that and KPop with different bands, or old Sci Fi, or like jane austen etc. where she's written more than one book but many peple vibe with multiple books. or the Age of Sail books, etc. !

mcyt fandom, structurally, is a little bit like the kpop fandom (i think). fundamentally its dozens or hundreds of smaller subfandoms of individuals/groups who create entertainment in the same or similar genres that all get lumped together under one umbrella term because of the aforementioned genre thing and also some amount of overlap in audiences