#when day 1 he actually did some lore with zam :[

[spacewaffling]

It's crazyyyyyyy how flame went from initially saying sorry (in the background u might not hear bc other ppl were talking) right after telling zam he was going to grief spawn to then blame zam for the recent increase of pacifist members like it was his fault ?!??? And killing zam 3 times......

[coffeegnomee]

Mapicc just left the call and I have too many thoughts to wait until after I finish the vod.

it is so Fascinating to me how 1) Mapicc is good at communication and 2) how much he patiently bides his time.

Mapicc has been not putting his own desires (bloodlust) first ever since he ended the experiments. We saw all like last week how he was willing to not kill Kab for Zam and there was so much discussion over how much he will do anything for Zam because he just wants to be around Zam again.

And so he doesn't mind putting the bloodlust to the side as long as it makes Zam happy, because that makes him happy.

But this day Mapicc, once the imminent threat and fight was over, immediately got Zam into a call and confronted him about Derap and then, in the most, like, extremely confident and clear way, explained how Zam not letting him kill Derap made him feel.

He was up front about his emotions, did not project, deflect, or throw shade at Zam at all, and basically just let him know how he was upset that Zam got int the way of his kill and how much he did not like that.

MAPICC: "hmm. Okay. I get you're mr pacifist [..] saving people, but like, my kills are my kills.”

MAPICC: “yea I- they're like my justifications. You know what I mean? So it’s like, it sucks when like, my kills are fucked”

MAPICC: "and like if I had killed him you could have had the heart and then we could have had a better chance of killing the actual bad people. And what would derapchu have done? Had slightly less of his already way too many hearts”

After each of these point he pauses, letting Zam hear what he's saying, letting Zam process it, waiting for Zam to acknowledge where he was coming from.

And each time Zam agrees Mapicc is right. He sees Mapicc's point.

And then the most devotions comment of the conversation:

ZAM: "but should I be allowed to turn a blind eye in that sense?” MAPICC: "well I don't want to be in a situation where I can't talk about what kills I'm gonna get or what I’m doing and I have no backup, you know what I mean?”

He doesn't want to not be able to tell Zam what he's up to. He doesn't want that situation, so he's getting ahead of it and letting Zam know immediately how he feels.

I can't help but feel like this is exactly the reason why Zam always ends up with Mapicc in every season. He is incredibly good at communication and making his point and his opinion clear.

And because he has such a clear opinion on how the server works and what makes it work best, he is incredibly persuasive and Zam ends up following him wherever he goes. (I've heard whispers Zam is thinking of leaving now, haven't gotten there. will be interesting)

I've thought so much over the years how Lifesteal is about convincing other people to do your thing.

Walk into your trap, show up at a fight, yap with you, join your team, stop their lore, whatever it is, the entire thing revolves around persuasion.

Which brings me to the second point, Mapicc is incredibly patient.

The week before the experiments ended, in a muted stream that was saved on the archive, Bacon and Mapicc talk about the server, and Mapicc says his one main goal is to get all the pacifists to break. (9/4/24)

And a week before, while Zam was cleaning up the burned down tree, while talking about how quickly Flame gave up on his fight, Mapicc said, “He’s never fought princezam. He’s gonna have to learn like a new, like dedication to the sport” (8/25/24)

Now, I don't actually think Mapicc had some grad evil manipulation arc to get close to Zam and get him to break (though I'll admit at the time my brain automatically thought everyone is pulling a Spoke wormhole at all times)

But it is more that he realized he would be much more effective in getting Zam to change his opinions if he was close to Zam and could build the trust necessary to get him to see why Mapicc thought his view was flawed, and as an added bonus he would get to hang out with Zam a lot for free.

And here we finally had the perfect moment. Zam died in a fight. Because he had low hearts.

So Mapicc makes it clear how Zam's actions made him feel and then drives his point home about why Zam should think differently the rest of the conversation:

MAPICC: "it’s not cause you were playing shit it's cause you have nothing bro, and it's like, you're a crutch to yourself [..] which is like, you can be a crutch to yourself, but like mapicc is the healthcare” ZAM: "I wanna beat them in pvp. I wanna be able to take them on in a fight and win” MAPICC: “you know what you have to do for that?” ZAM: "*sigh* yea I- I do” ZAM: "and the only person who died in that fight was me” MAPICC: “[sing song] and you know why bro. Like genuinely. Like you can't keep doing this. Well, you can if you want to, I mean obviously you can if your morals, but like-... I don't think it’s the best move” ZAM: "and all I can do is just stand in the destruction” MAPICC: "yup"

Mapicc's ideology for the server is that fighting is always a good, conflict and content should happen all the time. You should kill because it progresses the server forward in some way. You should always have some reason to back up your murder, but that reason can be small, the only important thing is that you have a reason and it is something you can communicate.

He also thinks power is always a reason to kill someone.

Zam on the other hand, Mapicc's beloved friend, does not think the same way, at least not in full. Zam understands conflict should happen on the server, and that the powerful should be fought, and in those situations devotions flourish.

But Zam operates from a character motivation, which he will change season to season, and from his emotions, which means his opinion about himself and his past actions has a HUGE pull on why he does anything ever. This was literally the foundation of this entire stream starting with a 40 minute reflection on s4 and vitalasy.

They are fundamentally, for their deepest core perspectives, ideologically opposed for their opinions on how to act on the server.

Idk if they'll ever be able to be on the same team forever. Sometimes, for brief moments, everything lines up and their devotion runs wild. They work the most synergistically of any duo on lifesteal ever.

But then Mapicc's bloodlust gets too strong and Zam's emotions get too loud and things fall apart.

At least, historically.

(oh, and felt the need to add at the end here that operating from emotions is not a /neg statement. It is entirely /neutral in my mind)

[irrealisms]

hi i have been TAKING NOTES and doing quick summaries of the streams i watched starting with void arc! they're not perfect notes or anything esp if you have different priorities than me but should give you an idea of what happened when and which are important vs grindy, which ones you can skim for a specific conversation/battle, etc. here's my notes on void arc (i also have notes for the more recent arcs but my notes on presidency arc are pretty sparse & my notes on the current arc include notes on jumper+minute streams which i don't want to put on zam's post, so if anyone wants those just hmu privately):

1/8/24 : baconwaffles stream, void hole yayyyyy. build base in parrot hole. planetlord is there. this is i think the first void-relevant stream?

1/10/24 : baconwaffles stream, recruiting jumper who + trying and failing to trap a couple people and getting a bit bitchy about it before successfully trapping 4C

1/11/24 : baconwaffles stream, jumper pretends to hire PMC to see if they will betray her, however she staged it, other void ponies plan to confront her tomorrow.

1/12/24 : baconwaffles stream, confronting jumper. it works out though yayyyyy. 

1/13/24 : mapicc & roshambo streams; mapicc pro-void roshambo anti-void

1/15/24 : baconwaffles stream, recruiting pentar, doing the jepex video. pentar stuff is relevant to void arc but jepex video recording isnt rly

1/16/24 : pangi stream, mentions recording the ending of the ro video yesterday and losing a bunch of hearts, zam is So Mad abt the foundation taking all his armor sets that he ~reconciles with pangi (pangi was anti-void). only relevant timestamps are 8:00 - 38:38. the first 8 minutes are maaaybe worth watching also but everything after that is just grinding hearts

1/17/24 : pangi stream, pangi grinds hearts some more. then FIRST SQUIDDO TUMBLR LIVE (tumblr imagine)

1/20/24 : baconwaffles stream, void ponies frustrated that they keep getting targeted, still don’t trust jumper. try and fail to do traps. also squiddo was live on tumblr live again and actually did lifesteal activities. our first and last lifesteal lore on tumblr live

1/22/24 : baconwaffles stream, minute has filled all the void traps at spawn up with water to Very High Up, bacon + zam + mapicc watch parkour civ, try to clear it out. bacon mapicc zam take a 3v3 w minute wemmbu and spoke. abyss gets frustrated a lot

2/1/2024 : vitalasy stream, vitalasy gets tour from 4C, flies with elytra for the first time, kills a couple of zam’s villagers

2/2/2024 : bacon stream, argument with ash about whether ash has to give bacon hearts back? might be the one zam referenced the next day, might not? note: i didn’t watch this one i just skimmed the vod. i should go back and watch it

2/3/2024 : pangi + mapicc streams. gordon ramsay IHOB bit. mapicc digs around in the floor carting and kills some people (mostly pangi). zam dies a bunch. nothing void-related but it's cute and fun if you are a Lifesteal Shenanigans Enjoyer

2/7/2024 : zam + vitalasy streams, zam + vitalasy meeting :DDD in which zam mentions that void ponies might want to end the server with this? also zam grinding stream in which he and bacon admit to reading tumblr

2/9/2024 : zam stream, making a depressing carnival for the void trap. mostly grinding and complaining.

2/10/2024 : zam + roshambo streams. this one’s kinda rough ooc, no one's plans work out. foundation tries to do a thing with withers but it doesn’t work out. carnival doesn’t work out either. nothing much happens. squiddo has an edited video of her pov of this!

2/13/2024 : vitalasy stream, vitalasy moves wardens, lies a little to jumper about heart count but promises to the viewers it'll make sense soon; mapicc was live but idk what he was doing?; zam is live on leowook’s account but doesn’t do much

2/23/2024 : zam stream, zam collects materials for a redstone machine, panics a little bit abt whether they might take the server off fabric, blows up some stuff for getting rid of All Of Spawn, talks abt editing his wormhole video. mostly just grinding

2/24/2024 : zam + vitalasy streams. on zam stream planet+minute jump zam+mapicc. session is interrupted bc the server goes down. void hole at spawn is coming along well. they play golf. void ponies all still think jumper is sus. on vitalasy stream, vitalasy does some terraforming, says his plan will Happen Tomorrow

2/25/2024 : zam stream + vitalasy stream + another zam stream. zam writes signs, void ponies take vitalasy hostage, jumper kills vitalasy, jumper goes live on vitalasy’s account with a book + scavenger hunt, vitalasy explains his plan of being with void ponies all along, gives jumper all his stuff, explains that he’s quitting lifesteal, and asks jumper to kill him; 3v5 void ponies vs foundation, foundation loses, planet kills himself; zam writes signs some more, void ponies decide to do a puzzle to give the foundation more hope. basically everything that happened on this day was important and lore-dense

2/26/2024 : zam stream, zam tries to make a sand duper

2/27/2024 : zam stream, zam builds detective agency. but pink this time :3 pretty kitty detective agency :3 also makes some paths. its nice but not much Plot happens

2/28/2024 : zam stream, more blowing up spawn lol

3/1/2024 : two zam streams, zam crafts pistons, uploads to VOD channel, watches more parkour civ, plays various non-minecraft games periodically. wemmbu and squiddo crash the server; wemmbu + zam confrontation, minute and zam feel each other out for an uneasy alliance against wemmbu while still being very much against each other <- first stream. second stream (might start after midnight/on 3/2 depending on time zone?): wemmbu + zam + minute at void hole, singleplayer testing

3/2/2024 : SO MUCH HAPPENS. wemmbu nukes. abyss scavenger hunt starts. etc. vods: 4c (pre-session), zam, minute, reddoons

3/3/2024 : zam stream, bedrock breaking slash valorant stream

3/4/2024 : zam stream, ash blew up the pistons Sadge. another grinding stream! in the evening ash and zam have a fight

3/5/2024 : minute+zam streams. REKRAP IS HERE. also jepexx trolls zam. and then zam goes on a healing arc and writes Positive Signs and gives himself a pep talk as an image of wemmbu

3/7/2024 : zam + rekrap + reddoons + poafa + roshambo. more puzzle solving. linear algebra clue is created. lots of grinding the machine and machine breaking. rekrap was live on his alt for a while also yippee! and then raided red who raided poafa who raided roshambo. stream chain :D i just watched zam for most of it though even though it was mostly just grinding. sorry to the actual puzzle solvers

3/8/2024 : zam + rekrap streams; once again i only watched zam. happy international women’s day! we get some eclipse federation mentions due to the clue which is awesome for me personally. also, wemmbu is unbanned & working on something; clown+minute+zam find a new orbital strike cannon, play around with plugin to see if he’s put stuff in it; wemmbu crashes the server a few times. imo primary interesting thing here was finding the orbital strike canon

3/9/2024 : minute + zam + jumper streams. zam and minute stream end of void arc. ashswag fucking HATES the linear algebra clue. foundation solves the puzzles with 5 minutes left before the bedrock starts breaking; void ponies all jump into the void except jumper, who reveals that she’s been a double agent for the foundation the whole time. then jumper goes live and does a qna!

hi princezam/princesszam/beingzam /ref

Where should I start for s5 for lifesteal, because I haven't caught up on it AT ALL. T_T.

well if you’re willing to vod watch I’d start at the beginning of the abyss arc. The streams happened from January 7th onward so if you have the vod spreadsheet made by the awesome archivists that’s where you’d start. You probably don’t have to watch every stream a lot of them are insanely long, but unfortunately I don’t know which ones are the important ones and which ones aren’t.

but if that’s not your style, I also have this massive recap that I wrote one time it’s like on my page somewhere. Once you’ve read it you can basically jump into any recent stream although it is missing a few more recent details unfortunately.

lastly if you like YouTube videos I’m starting to post highlights on my 2nd channel starting at the beginning of the void arc! They’re like kinda daily I finished the 2nd one today I’m just waiting until tmrw to post it. Hoping I can keep this up until it becomes too much and then I’ll try and pass it off to editors ideally.

[coffeegnomee]

Something that has always fascinated me deeply is how UNintelligable PrinceZam is when viewed from any pov besides his own. 

Because from PrinceZam’s pov, his lore is deep and rich and filled with struggles and worries and regret and fear and paranoia and justifications and good reasonings to do evil arcs. He really crafts the most interesting and sympathetic characters of all of lifesteal. He responds to the happenings of the server with deep lore every time. Pours everything out to chat, giving us the littlest details about his mindset at every moment. 

But from EVERYONE else’s pov he just does’t make sense. Like even I feel confused about PrinceZam when I watch him from other povs. There’s something about it that I can’t put my finger on. But more often than not, everyone views him with utter confusion. 

But this is the ONLY way other lifestealers interact with Zam. They don’t get to watch PrinceZam streams. They don’t see him like we do. Ever. 

And this really applies to every lifestealer ever, none of them get to see the lore from within that person's mind. The can only react to the external view of it.

What a fascinating little conundrum. 

Because with the Saturday session and Flame, I could not help but feel like he was actually just doing a Joker arc. Not Abyss, Joker. 

Because the Abyss was about player activity, sure, but it was more about the trap, and it grew into a “we will destroy all of spawn” over time.

The Joker arc was about making minutetech and jumper see that pacifism does not belong on lifesteal. This is the killing people server and you should kill people. Kill me. I will blow up builds until you kill me. 

Now, Flame does not have the pizzazz of the gay joker. He never will. And he probably will never make anything truly interesting with this lore from his own pov. (and bro keeps not streaming any of it)

But that’s not what intrigues me about it and made me so happy seeing it unfold. 

It’s because Zam was walking around saying the same damn lines that Minutetech said about Zam all throughout the joker arc. Some of them lines that were said between Minute and Ash without Zam around. The following are Zam quotes from the Saturday stream.

“they just want attention, if we don’t give them attention they’ll give up” almost word for word from minute about mapicc and zam. 

“If he’s going to throw a tantrum we mighteswell just not give him the fight”  

Them digging their heels in and not doing the one thing Zam/Flame wanted them to do: kill them. Not doing it because it was the one thing the crazy evil guy blowing up bases told you he wanted. 

“if i fight them i give them exactly what they want. It’s so fucked up. There’s no, there’s no winning option here. There’s nothing I can do to win”

“maybe some people can’t feel regret the way I do, that’s fine, i guess, that’s whatever.If that’s how he is, that’s how he is. But i don't believe that for a second” (remember who you were in s3 Zam!)

“He’s just going to blow up more. And that’s okay. I’m willing to let him do that. I honestly don't care. Like, if that’s what he wants to do then that’s what he does I guess”

“YOURE having fun, but no one is gonna log on and see this and say oh I wanna fight flame now. No one’s doing that dude. This isn’t how this works.”

FLAME: “it makes me happy bro, that’s all that matters” How many times did Zam insist that the Joker arc was fun. How many times did Jumper go “why are you doing this” and Zam said “it’s fun” without elaborating the nuanced undertones of the arc. 

Zam even dropped the MinuteTech patented "okay"s when Flame and Wemmbu were saying they were doing it for fun.

From the outside the lore was the same. The damn same. But this time we have the pb&j side from PrinceZam. And it fascinates me how similarly they approached the situation. 

And then as a final bonus, there’s the question about moral high ground. On the first day of the server, Ash was talking to Wemmbu and the following conversation unfolded (1:38:00) 

WEMMBU: “I have done nothing evil this season. Leowook killed me for no reason, then I died to fall damage for no reason, well, because my water glitched out, and then I died to Spoke for no reason… DUDE I’M ON THE MORAL HIGH GROUND THIS TIME! Without having to like, make things up. This is great.” 

ASH: “Yea, don’t do that bro. It’s not worth it. Seriously. It’s not worth it and you won’t even get a good video. Do you know how easy it is to be a good guy, and then last second go ‘I want to be an agent of chaos’ and how much that fucks everyone else on your team up?” 

And Zam on Saturday, “Why does it even matter? What the- what does moral high ground get me?!”

Ominous shit man.