#redwintertalks

[redwinterroses]

Genuinely love that my dad calls me to ask questions about Minecraft. "Honey, my nether portal is being weird what did I do wrong?" "Sunshine, your brother and I found a map for buried treasure but we can't find it, how can we breathe underwater without potions?" (they play peaceful mode)

Like. I'm an adult woman living almost an hour away with a full time job and bills and everything and my dad calls me for help with the block game because, in his words, I'm "the resident expert."

Feels good.

[redwinterroses]

OH. OH MY HOLY CROW.

Hey you. @redwinterrises Ow. /pos

(This is fanart of the above persons fic for 3rdlife, you should read it, it's good and ow :D)

[ID: A colored comic set in 3rdlife. Three panels go diagonally in frames made of branches that snow slowly melts off of. The first panel shows a melancholy Ren looking up at the camera, blood dribbles from his mouth. A text bubble reads "Winter's fallen,". The next panel is Martyn looking down in distress. The third panel is once again Ren, now with his head turned and eyes more closed. A text bubble reads "See you in the spring.". The panels fade away into snow at the bottom that leads to a drawing below them all. Martyn is holding Ren, they are on the red kings alter, and everything is covered in the falling snow. An axe is imbedded in Rens stomach/chest area. Blood pools on the alter and flows down to a single red flower. END ID]

[redwinterroses]

hermitcraft crack headcanon: Ren is a werewolf, yes. Which means that every full moon he turns into a wolf. But like... a minecraft wolf. Who can be tamed with bones. And his "tamed" quality resets every time he shifts back.

Other hermits occasionally compete to be the first one to "tame" Ren for the month, and brag about how few bones they had to use. (Ren claims to remember none of this but if you pranked him recently it's going to take a lot more bones than usual.) The current record holder is Doc, who only had to use three, but Bdubs stubbornly holds that it doesn't count and that Doc cheated by giving Ren a shulker of fully-oxidized copper the day before.

Xisuma quietly added a new advancement to the server that Ren still hasn't found out about. But every month, it'll pop up in chat: "____ has made the advancement [Best Cyber-Diggity-Dogs Forever]".

[redwinterroses]

Just saw a comment about the Hermitcraft Vault Hunters that was like "So good to see the Hermits finally get into modded!"

And like--

Okay, first off, Hermitcraft is not vanilla, my friend. It's maybe Artificially Vanilla Flavored, but it's a modded server at this point.

Secondly, do the Life Series, Hermitcraft UHCs, and the Create series mean nothing to you? /lh

And maybe that's not enough people involved to feel like "modded Hermits" overall, but even if so: Joe of the Hills did not set the entire Hermitcraft FTB Ultimate nether on fire for people to act like the Hermits have never done modded. XD

[redwinterroses]

Okay so lately I've seen two big discussions:

a) How content creators are "invading" fan spaces and interacting with fan content, and how they should know this isn't acceptable. How they certainly shouldn't interact with /neg content, especially in front of an audience, but even with positive things like fanart and memes they should keep it to themselves and either enjoy in silence or just stay away altogether

b) If you love a piece of art or a fic, comment on it! reblog it! Don't hide your appreciation in a private chat where the author never gets to see, here's a story about someone who decided to delete all their fics because they found out that they had a bunch of people enthusiastically chatting about them in a private discord but none of those people understood how much it means to an author or artist to get that kind of feedback directly

...Y'all seeing the problem here? Obviously, there is an extreme on each end of this spectrum. Yeah, I'm not a fan of a content creator taking fan content and using it to mock the fanbase (I'm looking at you, Steven Moffat) and obviously there is some discernment that authors etc need to have because if you read enough fic about your work there's a chance you can get accused of stealing ideas from your fans.

And at the other end, an author who finds out about a thriving discord screaming about their work but never gets any comments or direct feedback has every right to be frustrated and hurt by that. If they choose to stop writing for those "fans" then that is 100% their prerogative.

But you can't hold both extremes. You can't demand that CCs stay out of fandom spaces and never engage with the cringy or critical stuff -- fans put it out there to be seen, and CCs have every right to engage with things that are made about their content. And if you DO want to demand that, then you can't turn around and say "reblog, don't just like!" and "authors need your feedback! comments feed them! they deserve to know that you enjoyed what they put so much work into!"

The right to engage with people who read/view/enjoy your work doesn't go away when your audience reaches a certain perceived size. There is a nuanced conversation to be had about what's good for the mental health of a creator, and where fans can go too far, but generally speaking: if a fan puts it out into the world, there is literally no reason why the person they're a fan of should have to not engage. Creators who respect fandom hashtags and such are commendable, but that is not and should never be the expectation.

If you don't want someone to see it, don't put it on the internet, plain and simple.

Stop trying to gatekeep the people who gave you the storyworlds you're playing in to begin with. Sometimes they're going to be assholes about it, because humans are unfortunately like that. But that's their right, just like it's your right to create cringy memes and, shall we say, "wildly inventive" fic about the stories and characters you're borrowing from them. (And, important side note, it's also your right to stop being a fan of that franchise/person/concept if you don't like how they interact.)

Moral of the story: comment on fic, tag the art, and stop freaking out every time a CC sees your insane tier list that has their name on it.

[redwinterroses]

...

Look all I'm saying is this is My Jam and if a few Too-Noble-For-Their-Own-Good hermits get hurt along the way that's just absolutely tragic and I won't enjoy it immensely.

...my trust for you is a thin and fragile thing, however since its foundation stone is "I can prolly get my angst fix here" I think we'll be fine.

But so help me if you make Doc cry--

I'll enjoy it.

doc? cry? nahhhh he's doing totally fine, absolutely not repressing any emotions for the sake of the people around him and trying to put up a face as the Competent And Calculating One. that's not a doc thing to do at all, nuh uh, the M definitely does not stand for Martyr (complex), it's fiiiine--

[redwinterroses]

I love the hc of Impulse being the "gives great hugs" hermit as much as anyone (actually I'm very attached to this hc) and yet on the other hand: it's hilarious to imagine hermit-Impulse with irl-Impulse's "please do not hug me. do not want" trait, but everyone still assumes he's a hugger because a) he is too nice to discourage people until he knows them really well and at that point it's too late and b) he actually does give great hugs, to his everlasting chagrin.

[redwinterroses]

Holy cow -- so the signed HC-TCG cards apparently ran into some trouble when shipping back from the hermits who signed them to the CREO people who would pack and send them out to us. Problems that looked like the silver marker used for signing them bleeding onto the back of the next card in the stack.

"Disaster! While we could absorb the cost of re-printing the cards, the timeline impact would be dramatic, as it would take months to re-print the cards, cut/trim them, send for signing, and finally return for final assembly and shipping." (<- from the update email)

So what did they decide to do to fix this problem with as little delay as possible?

They're cleaning them. Every card. By hand.

"We are ever-so-carefully wiping the back of each and every card, holding it in one (gloved) hand and wiping with the other, so as to not disturb either the varnish and Spot UV finish on the back of each card, or the signature on the front of the card."

I've been sitting here bouncing in my seat like a 5yo going "Are they here yet? Are they here yet?" But knowing this: I'm content to wait a little bit longer. Props to the folks at CREO (and especially to Luke Chesney, the founder, who is apparently a longtime Hermitcraft fan) for not just going "Eh. It's fine," and shipping the cards with the blemishes. That's a company I'd be interested in buying from again.

...but also I'm five so I will still be checking my mailbox every day. XD

[redwinterroses]

I love the agreed-on design choices that have turned into shorthand for recognizing characters. Pink hair and a crown? Technoblade. Green stripes and wings? Philza. Blonde with a red sweater? ...well, you could be looking at one of two characters, but if the wings are purple or parrot it's Grian and if he's got white wings and cheek bandaids it's Tommy. Space-age armor = Xisuma. Fangs and suspenders = Rendog. Tall with a dark mustache = Mumbo Jumbo. Any sort of scarring = probably Scar. Red eyes = Tango. Indiana Jones in blue = Pixlriffs. Snakes for hair = Cleo. Any kind of black+white+neon green theming = almost certainly JoeHills.

I dunno, I just love that there are certain design choices, things that aren't always even represented by the player's minecraft skin, that are so ubiquitous. I can look at a design that looks nothing like anything I've seen before and have a good shot at recognizing the character immediately. It's just kinda cool.

[redwinterroses]

I'm going to regret making this probably but I couldn't help it. Iskall you accidentally made a song and it's stuck in my head.

iskall isnt having the best day...

[redwinterroses]

listen. if you live on the second floor of an apartment building and your downstairs neighbor politely knocks on your door one night to ask that you please stop scooting furniture or whatever it is you're doing every night at 3AM and you don't stop doing that, and also you wear shoes around the house and walk Very Heavily, and you probably work the night shift so you're exclusively up and around and working out with weights that thunk on the floor from 11:30PM to 4AM, and also you catcall your other downstairs neighbor in the parking lot multiple times and you play loud music all day long--

all I'm saying is that your downstairs neighbor is probably justified in placing an old phone as high in the downstairs bedroom as possible so it will be right next to your bed, and setting a series of alarms that go off from 9AM to noon (while you are sleeping off your night shift) that are a loud, obnoxious beeping but won't go off at regular intervals, and then leaving the house for the day. Every day. For a week.

I'm just saying.

[redwinterroses]

I like to do this grounding exercise I jokingly call "go touch grass" but honestly it's... almost exactly that.

First you need to go outside. It doesn't have to be far, it doesn't have to be "in nature" -- just somewhere with a bit of wind and sky. A parking lot is as good as a pasture. Make sure you're safe and aware of your surroundings, that you're not about to get run over by a cow or eaten by a moving van.

Close your eyes. Become aware of the surface of your skin. Can you feel the wind on it? Can you feel how it's stronger on one side of your nose and there's a bit of a lee on the other cheek? Can you feel that strand of hair against your neck? Is there sunlight? Feel how you can actually register the heat of it wherever it touches. Maybe the wind competes with the sunlight. Maybe it's cloudy. Maybe there are tiny raindrops that hit your skin. Feel it.

Look down. Really look, like you're five years old again, looking for Special Rocks. Find a bug and follow its path across the pavement. Look at the pattern in the gravel, the way it piles up against the side of your foot. Grind your toe into the ground a bit, see how you cause a mountain range to appear in the dirt. Look at the individual blades of grass, and that dead leaf -- look at its delicate veins. See the little tufts of fibers on the heads of the grassy weeds and how they tremble at the slightest breeze. You can crush them underfoot if you want to -- they'll grow back. Smell the green scent of the broken stems, and then look at how many thousands more blades of grass there are around you, unperturbed.

Look up. See the sky, through the branches or between buildings or over your neighbor's roof. Are there clouds? Look at the way the light filters through them. Tilt your head to the side and see how changing your perspective can heighten your understanding of the shadows. Is there a plane flying over? Maybe a bird? Watch it until it's out of sight. Maybe there are stars. Look closely at their shifting colors and try to name them -- is it blue? or red? or something that's neither?

Listen. Take in one by one the sounds of distant traffic, of a neighbor's washing machine, of the kids next door or the dog three doors down, the birdsong across the creek, the squirrel chittering in the maple tree. Single the sounds out one by one and really listen to them, the way you'd listen to a new song that you're trying to understand the words to. Lick your lips and listen to the sound your jaw makes when you move, or the brush of your hair against your ear, the sound your jeans make as you walk, the crunch of dry grass underfoot or the sksh-sksh of gravel.

Take in every sense with deliberate intent. Focus on your skin, on the tips of your fingers brushing against a brick wall or clasping a porch rail or just rubbing the cloth of your shirt between them. Feel how the air moves over your arms. Listen to the sound of it and the sounds of the world moving around you, whether it's a busy downtown or a rural driveway. Wiggle your toes inside your shoe and be aware of how the pressure changes as you move them. Walk and try to register each shifting muscle as your feet bend, legs picking up and setting down again.

I have bad anxiety -- some weeks worse than others. I've taken to going on a walk every day during my break at work and doing this process as I go. It never fails to make me feel more solid and grounded, and while I've never had much luck with straight meditation, I think this comes pretty close.

You are real, you exist, the world is moving at its proper pace, and all around you life is blooming and growing and shifting and becoming.

"All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."

[redwinterroses]

broke my four-year streak and finally caught covid. this shiz is for the birds.

[redwinterroses]

one of the best things I've seen about the hermitcraft fan community growing (in my relatively short time as part of it) is that at some point the hermits stopped having to cut out or justify themselves every time they went and borrowed/stole something from a friend. I'm not sure what the change was, but I remember several posts or bits of video pre-2021 where various hermits had to be like, "Yes, I took five stacks of XYZ from so-and-so's farm, but it's okay, we're friends, I have permission." And the comments would still be full of people (probably mostly 14yo kids) making all sorts of accusations.

Now Mumbo just blatantly takes stuff out of Grian's storage on camera and it's a meme at this point. No one cares. I love it.

[redwinterroses]

the fic that started out as a planned ~8 chapters and 10k-or-so words two years ago has grown by 12,724 words in the last two weeks.

like. I'm not complaining. But this fic was dead in the water for two years and now it's a freight train out of control and I'm just hanging on for dear life at this point.

[redwinterroses]

when you realize that Skizz gave Ren the leather that became the books that became the enchanter in 3rd Life :headinhands:

it all comes back to Skizzleman.