#worldbuilding for this smp was so fun!

[whatareyoudoingwithamaserati]

She mcyt on my aro till i week . Uhm . PURPLE DUO HANAHAKI for the prompt trope subversion!!!!! @mcyt-aro-week

[lifeserieswarriors]

RELATIONSHIP ASKS R OPEN!

send me asks about relationships between two or more kitties & i'll respond with a cute little doodle like this. or not-so cute. choose wisely!

full img + more under the cut!

intermission at crownclan ; claycloud & shadowheart

claycloud and shadowheart are mates! despite being parts of two different colonies within crownclan, they're still very close and visit each other in between their leadership (not-so-leadership duties, in claycloud's case) and occasional starclan kidnappings! good relationships triumph through the threat of omnipotent gods.

[x-i-l-verify]

「Dream SMP Daemon AU 」

    ⚔ TECHNOBLADE + ALEKSAIX (BROADSWORD) ⚔

Piglins, as denizens of the Nether, do not have daemons as Overworlders do. Rather, their souls take the form of weapons, called morai-kelul ("forged-self"). Morai-kelul come in all shapes and sizes, from swords, knives, spears, bows, maces, hammers, sickles, clubs, chains, brass knuckles, and many, many more. When a piglin child reaches the equivalent of one year of age, their main adult caretakers, blood-related or not, will bring them into the village forge, and begin construction on the child's morai-kelul in a very sacred series of rituals that take months to complete. The construction always involves at least some amount of gold, a spiritual, coveted metal to piglins. Once the weapon is forged, it is named for an aspirational virtue or concept that their caretakers wish to impart to them, such as "bravery," "insight," "candor," etc.

As the piglin grows and changes over time, however, the first morai-kelul forged by their caretaker(s) will eventually break. This happens to everyone at some point in their lives, and is a very painful event mentally and emotionally. When this happens, the piglin must construct a new morai-kelul with the pieces of the old one, which always takes a form different from the first. A spear might become a dagger, an axe might become a crossbow, a sword might become a shield, etc. Outside of this event, morai-kelul are indestructible by most normal means unless their piglin dies, in which case they become a normal, inanimate object.

Unlike Overworlders and their daemons, there is no limit to how far a piglin can travel away from their morai-kelul, and they can summon them from over great distances. The only exceptions to this are traveling from the Nether to the Overworld, the Overworld to the End or the Nether, or traveling between servers; if a piglin tries to go between servers or dimensions without their morai-kelul, they will instantly become like a zombie, with a living body but no conscious mind.

Piglins have no issue with touching each other's morai-kelul. In fact, it is common for piglins, especially the children, to go up to someone with a really cool-looking one and ask to hold it so they can examine it more closely. However, the morai-kelul must be handed to them in order for them to hold it. For example, if Philza tried to pick up Aleksaix off the table or off the ground, he would not be able to; Technoblade would need to hand it to him in order for him to carry it properly. Mates swap morai-kelul during their wedding ceremonies, and fighting with someone else's morai-kelul is considered the highest show of intimacy and trust a piglin can display.

Morai-kelul do not speak with an audible voice like facets such as daemons do. Rather, they communicate in projected feelings and images. Normally, only its piglin half can communicate directly with it, but if it is being held by someone else, it can communicate with that person as well. They also are always referred to as "it" rather than with gendered pronouns.

Technoblade is wary, blunt and insincere. Aleksaix embodies his idealistic, sensitive, trusting side.

~

NAME MEANING "Aleksaix" means "responsibility" in the piglin tongue. It is rather uncommon for piglins to freely tell others the name of their morai-kelul without knowing them well first, so Technoblade has taken to saying the name of his is Orphan Obliterator as in inside joke. Very few people are familiar enough with piglin culture to call him on this.

~

SOURCES I took this concept and many ideas surrounding it from this person's concept for Asgardian daemons, so credit where credit is due.

[fruitwanderer]

I'm rewatching Cleo's Witchcraft SMP episode from today and I was so caught up in the crastle that I did not even hear that she mentioned the Rift

[paintingpuff]

So with the terrible Minecraft movie trailer dropping,

I've seen a lot of people bringing up better stories in the world of Minecraft, like Story Mode or the books or the SMPs, but may I add another option that would be a way better use of your time and money than the Minecraft movie (esp cuz its free)?

Animation Vs. Minecraft

(Note: contains out of context spoilers for this series to give you a sneak peek of what's waiting for you)

There's a good chance you've seen the first video, since it's one of the most watched minecraft videos on youtube, made by the same guy who did Animation vs Animator.

But did you know that the stick figures pick the game back up and continue the series?

There are now three completed seasons packed with fun episodic content that naturally blossoms into a larger, engrossing story that amounts to /several hours of animated content/. It's got fun characters, gorgeous fight scenes, and even musical numbers, all told with next to no dialogue!

The whole thing is a love letter to Minecraft, with way more passion and knowledge of the game than WBS.

New episodes would show off the latest updates, like when the main characters explored the ancient cities and lush caves before they were officially released.

There are even homages to the Minecraft animation community, such as the episode featuring Monster School (my favorite part of this is the way they purposefully imitate the old janky animation in Herobrine's movements)

Not a fan of piglins always being villains? While there's certainly some bad piglins in this series (though I'd argue they're under duress), the main cast also befriends some, include this adorable piglin child.

Still not over Reuben's death from MSM? Well they've also got a pig (named Reuben by the community), and it both doesn't die, and occasionally does some badassery himself!

Speaking of the action, this series doesn't just reference minecraft's world and creatures: it expands on the mechanics and worldbuilding, creating avenues for some truly incredible action that can only be achieved within minecraft. It takes full advantage of the medium and world.

My personal favorite example of this is the team's expansion on the Lucky Blocks mod, exploring the idea of a "randomizer" power to its fullest extent.

The action scenes are the kind where you have to watch them five times over because each character is doing something completely unique and fun.

Here is all the episodes of season 1 compiled in one video to get you started, though there are also playlists out there:

All in all, this series is funny, gripping, and adorable, and is worth your attention far better than some corporate schlock.

[ivi-prism]

✨✨Mcytblr ask game for writers✨✨

Let's start the new year by prompting the writers in the fandom so they infodump on all of us <3

1. Where do you write? (notes app, Google Drive, word, a notebook, directly onto ao3, another word processor, etc.)

2. What was the first SMP or cubito you ever wrote for?

3. Which SMP do you find is the most fun to work with?

4. Anything you like in particular about writing for this fandom? (the setting, the aus, the people,etc)

5. How do you translate the world of Minecraft to fit into your fanfics when you keep the original setting?

6. Do you like using the mcyt multiverse as a concept? (all SMPS and MC content exists in the same universe)

7.How long does it take for you to go from an idea to the end product? (be it drabble in tumblr or fully published multichapter fic in ao3)

8.Do you edit and proofread your works yourself or do you have someone else to help you with that?

9.How do you worldbuild?

10.How do you do character arcs?

11.Are you more of a planner or an improviser?

12.Funniest comment you've ever gotten in a piece of work?

13.Any segment of your work that made you cry while writing it? (because it moved you deeply)

14.Most fun and/or engaging character voice to write in?

15.Writing in first, second or third person?

16.What do you think is the signature aspect of your work? What do you think readers see and go "Ah of course! [Writer] made this!"

17.Favorite dynamic to write? (ship, familial bond, friendship, qpr, rivalry, etc)

18.How similar are the things you enjoy writing to the things you enjoy reading?

19.Do you tend to take into account hybrid characteristics (avian, enderman hybrid, dragon hybrid, etc) when you are writing cubitos?

20.Which project have you poured so much of yourself into that it resembles more an original work than a derivative mcyt work?

21.What cubito have you stared from afar like a weird bug and thought "If I knew what was up with you or your world I'd try writing for you"?

22.Any popular fanfic you heard a lot of buzz around and thought "eh it's fine" just to read it later and decide "oh it does deserve all the hype it gets!"

23.What work of yours would you like to have the biggest impact on the fandom?

24.What work would you like to talk more about?

25.What works and/or authors in the fandom do you recommend?

[antimony-medusa]

HEY MCYTBLR HAVE YOU HEARD OF YULETIDE?

What's this? I have come once again to your dash to tell you about an exchange? Absolutely I have. And let me tell you, this one is a doozy.

Yuletide is The Big Multifandom Exchange. It is the king of exchanges. It happens every year, and the works reveal on December 25th, and de-anon on the 1st of January. Last year over 1,800 people took part in the exchange. A lot of people only do Yuletide from the roster of exchanges. It is literally so big that it's the reason we have the Ao3 matching algorithm, because the Ao3 algorithm was built to handle Yuletide, because you have to algorithm match that one, it is simply unfeasible to hand-match an exchange of this magnitude.

What makes Yuletide special is that it is an exchange for rare and tiny fandoms— specifically, fandoms with less than 1000 fics on the archive. So all these niche book fandoms that get 10 fics posted in them a year— these people sign up for Yuletide, and they get matched. And people sign up with SUCH small fandoms.

Commercials.

Tumblr posts.

Art.

Songs.

Reddit Posts.

TikTok skits.

Web comics.

Twitter threads.

Books published 30 years ago.

Anthropomorphic concepts.

Niche tv shows.

Video games.

You can look at the tag list last year to get an idea of the sort of fandoms that show up in it. I did it last year, and I signed up with two book fandoms, SMPEarth, anthropomorphic apple products, and the "humans are space orcs" tumblr post as my fandoms.

Wait, SMPearth? And yes, we have come to the point of why I am specifically talking to MCYTblr. I do the MCYT on Ao3 stats dive every month, so I happen to know that there are 35 canonized MCYT tags that are eligable, as they have less than 1000 fics.

Pirates SMP is eligable.

Ivorycello Prison Escapes is eligable.

Karmaland is eligable.

Rats SMP is eligable.

Witchcraft SMP is eligible.

New Life SMP is eligable.

SMPLive is eligable.

Mianite is eligable.

The list goes on.

So. Do you want to do Yuletide 2023 with me?

Please Please Please Please Please. It's just a 1k minimum and they give you six weeks to work on it. You don't even nead a canonical tag to nominate, you can nominated non-canon fandoms! Please Please Please so funnnnnnn.

They are in tag nominations now, so until 28 September, at 9am UTC, you can nominate the tags you want to match on. I just nominated SMPEarth Emduo and Worldbuilding. It's a fun time. Join Meeeee.

IMPORTANT TECHNICAL NOTES:

Yuletide is a BIG EXCHANGE and everyone there is very professional, but that also means that they have very specific rules for how things should be run. I would say read the rules, maybe twice, before you submit anything. If you have any questions, message me and I will do my best to answer them.

Yuletide blog here.

Yuletide collection here.

Nomination rules here.

(Especially take note of the stuff about disambiguation, and use mcyt best practice of using gamertag and not tax filing name, none of the | pipes and multiple names in there.)

Eligability rules here.

Nominate on the Tag Set here.

If there is something about your fandom that makes you think they might not accept it, you can explain your arguments here.

Note that people who have had over 1000 fics written about them in RPF are not eligable to be nominated in a RPF fandom, so depending on your guy, you may need to pop a message on that post to explain that Afterlife SMP is not actually Video Blogging RPF for example, and Smajor1995 (Afterlife SMP) is not the same as Smajor1995 (Empires SMP).

Go forth! Participate in a great exchange!

[doekimakura]

Welcome to Svallin!

Sooo as most of you followers have known me, my interests jump rapidly and incoherently between fandoms (Minecraft, Warframe, Minecraft, DRG, Undead Unluck, Minecraf-) and this time I am back to the silly voxel game and I am making a tiny personal project just for funsies.

Welcome to the server, Svallin! This place is in the works currently (Not an SMP I do not have the money nor energy for it) and is based on both my blogs @mc-survivalist-steven and @software-bugs-b-gon. It's my personal project with only me working on it so far, but I am using it as my sandbox as I fix lore stuff I don't sit well with in MCSS. Svallin is moreso an AU and is going to be a bit different than the lore in the blogs, so don't worry about 'inconsistencies'!

More OCs and worldbuild will be revealed overtime. For now, I just wanna have fun :DDD

(Oh and SBBG will continue next month if I get a job ok, dw!)

Svallin Tag ↗

[unexpectedly-haunted]

fic rec list!

assorted hermitcraft + life series fic recommendations!

attempt thirty-three by bee_4: Joe Hills centric time loop fic. Also features Cleo, Scar, and Cub, and I love everyone's characterisation! Haunting and open ended, but still points of hope. Words: 13,617 Chapters: 1/1

To Sit in Hell with You by enemyofrome: Last Life treebark fic from Ren's POV. Focus on these two in the Shadow Alliance because man, those guys were really something else. Obsessed with the characterisation, have reread a reasonable amount. Words: 2,664 Chapters: 1/1

monsters nearby series by enemyofrome: Treebark series where the games are over but the Watchers aren't leaving Martyn alone- really fun exploration of supernatural impersonations and how that might impact your relationship with the real person. I'm not normal about these ones. Second work has a hopeful ending. Words: 13,856 Works: 2

Lifeline AU by SlashMagpie: Scifi/Fantasy AU about body-snatching aliens, also including the emptiness of space, magical worldbuilding, unreality and time travel. Main POV characters are Tango, Impulse + Pearl, but also includes much of the Hermitcraft ensemble + Skizz. Read the entire AU in one night and haven't been the same since, cannot recommend highly enough. Words: 299,349 Works: 6

Blood & Snow by SlashMagpie: Tango gets eaten by the dungeon, or close enough. Unsettling, visceral, and features possession! Has Scar, Bdubs, Cub, Etho, and Hypno POV. Words: 12,425 Chapters: 7/7

the sanctity of the mundane by crabbunch: Double Life SMP series with a fic exploring the relationships between each soul bounded pair. Found each work really fun and compelling, great variety in tone. Shoutout especially to this Cleo + Martyn! Words: 24,712 Works: 7

sculk blossom by crabbunch: Cub centric fic that works as both a character study and a look at his sculk corruption on Empires. Delighted by the horror and characterisation here! Words: 4,065 Chapters: 5/5

Deus Ex Machine by crabbunch: Bdubs POV, an existential/magical horror piece about the power of belief, storytelling, and godhood. Also some great Clethubs! Words: 13,449 Chapters: 8/16

Tangotek Evil Incorporated: Supervillain Tango and superhero Jimmy as arch nemeses. Comedy with a happy ending, and SO much fun to read. Words: 22,445 Chapters: 2/2

there are many downsides to being a marine biologist by donnerstag: Doc's marine biology gets complicated when the latest specimen turns out more human than expected: the siren he names Martyn. Really engaging and well-characterised fic, impossible to read and not end up invested in docmartyn. Trust me. Words: 74,006 Chapters: 27/27

a falling axe, a sharpened knife by sesquidpedalian: Double Life Cleo + Martyn relationship study, where soulmates also have a telepathic bond. Just really enjoyed this one! Words: 2,081 Chapters: 1/1

ectype by sesquidpedalian: Third Life AU where Martyn is there when Grian visits for enchantments. Really neat character study of two guys who aren't anything alike at all, definitely not. Words: 1,603 Chapters: 1/1

never our blood on this sand again by cosmicretribution: Scarian and treebark timeloop AU. Includes angst, the Timeloop Horrors, developing relationships, and great prose + characterisation! Words: 8,905 Works: 2

A Romance Route for the Doomed Villain?! by skelew: Treebark isekai AU where Martyn gets hit by a 2007 nissan micra and transported to a dating sim featuring the villainous Red King. Crack treated seriously, and a great parody fic that also happens to be genuinely compelling. Words: 5,012 Chapters: 1/1

feel free to add on recs in reblogs/comments! :D

[hermitcraftx]

I agree with your post about hermit fans in regard to things being very popular. I’ve seen more people being angry and annoyed about scarian in the last six months than people celebrating it. Not tagging shipping is shit but it’s better than harassing people. I don’t know what was put in the water but something changed drastically and I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s seen it.

IT'S FUCKING INSANE! This fandom used to be so positive and welcoming and overall way more pleasant than some... other MCYT fandoms, but now??? I can't log on without seeing untagged negative interpretations in the main tags, can't express an opinion without getting anons calling me heterosexual sympathizers and hoping that I die, everyone has turned their back on everything that used to make this fandom really... fun? Like, I don't tag ON MY BLOG, but usually I don't maintag my shipping posts, and if I do, I tag the ship name so people can filter it.... I don't maintag duo names. What the fuck happened to make everyone so- miserable. Anons are probably going to be permanently off for me, too many people comfortable with their opinions and not comfortable with mine and desperately needing to tell me that.

And like- look. I get not liking interpretations. Personally I'm not a fan of the Double Life cheating arc because of how abusive and out of character people made Grian be, and I had to avoid ao3 for a bit because of that and filter the fucking tags. Same thing with found family dynamics. Just because you don't like something doesn't make it "overrated and popular" and just because you don't like something doesn't make it immoral or unethical either!!! People have to make everything a moral standpoint nowadays and it's really exhausting-

But that's a tirade. All over all the confessions blogs there's "scarian is overrated" despite Grian having nearly 10mil subscribers and most of them being on YouTube and considering all the hermits friends or family truthing them. Yes, there is more shipping than before- that's because Hermitcraft season 8 made it very obvious that the people on the SMP and the people IRL are very different, and it's no longer considered RPF. None of the real hermits died via moon explosion, ZombieCleo often says she's doing "lore", they make different skins, even GRIAN acknowledges that he's acting and playing a part with the permit office. Despite all that, there's STILL wars on shipping and people insisting that we're shipping real people, I fought this war on the DSMP side of things and it's SO TIRING.

DND podcast listeners, do you ship the people playing the characters? NO!!!!! Unless you do, in which case, have fun with that. I don't really care about RPF and I filtered the tags for it a long time ago, so maybe they do do that.

Every other day I see "Third life is overrated" "Last life is overrated" (LAST LIFE IS OFTEN THE LEAST FAVORITE SEASON I SEE PEOPLE SAY!), "the life series is overrated" "the cactus ring is fucking stupid" "they left the desert but we didn't" "no, THIS interpretation of scarian is bad and wrong" and like... guys. Guys. Fandom is supposed to be fun. It is not supposed to be a full time job. It is not supposed to be moral or ethical and you shouldn't feel the need to police shit. Jesus Christ, every other month there's a new fad that tumblr users flock to and once it's over everyone goes "EWWW THAT WAS LAME AND OVERRATED AND I NEVER LIKED IT ANYWAY" like.... I promise you cannibalism as an allegory for love is not mainstream you are just on Tumblr.

Like Good God. If it's so bad here go to Twitter. I'm sick of all the complaining and misery and hatred and I miss when things were fun- people are so scared of being cliche that they don't want to write things that they enjoy. Where are the coffee shop aus???? Where are the fun silly things??? Where are the 100k grimdark fics with worldbuilding??? Wheres the 500k fics that aren't even about the same characters anymore but that we love just the same??? Where are the forums and people talking to each other in comments and meeting each other that way??? Where are the roleplay servers?????? What are you all doing??????

People are scared of being judged. They want to do what everyone else is doing. They don't want to be cringe or cliche and every day I see a "cringe culture is dead" post and then someone making fun of another part of fandom, an antithesis to their previous statement. They don't want to be late to things, either. Who cares if Last Life was a couple years ago? Draw the fanart anyway!

I'm scared. Maybe I'm just old, but every post I see I notice that I get maybe a 10th in reblogs of what I do in likes, and I don't even post my art or fics to this site. Every post is like that. More and more people only like posts and they die, unseen, by everyone. More and more people misuse archive of our own's functions, treating it like it has some algorithm, when it doesn't, and it never has and hopefully never will. I see fic reuploads to "gain traction" (not how it works) and people reaching out to find RP partners (breaking TOS) and all sorts of other shit on both sites and it fucking horrifies me. I'm not even that old- I'm eighteen, and I can already tell how fandom has changed for the worst for everyone. Fandom used to be a community. Not consumption.

It's just... sad. Old fandom had PLENTY of fucking problems, and we have problems here too, but at least the positives outweighed the negatives. It's so... mean here, now. Even the happy things are mean-spirited. People treat it as if certain people have invaded this fandom space, spreading horrible opinions and ruining it for everyone, but the truth is is that shipping is always going to be a thing. It's a foundation of fandom- fandom started with housewives in the 1950s writing Star Trek fanfiction. You can never get rid of shipping. You can just interact with what you want to interact with and leave others to mind their own business.

[the-final-sif]

The godling/little god Dream & Dream XD is literally insane. This is so good. I cannoe put into words just how much I love it. The worldbuilding with the gods?? The tragicness, the unfairness, the sheer greed of those gods who want to live forever? This slaps so damn hard. And I know you might not want to say it yet, but I am SO curious how dream's cough cough actual godling status will work with his overall goal in the dsmp and the prison arc. Just, like, great job sif your hands are blessed

I'm glad you're enjoying it! I like having complex and fucked up gods, and it's a fun AU to build.

I think I've talked about it a little bit, but c!Dream up until the end of the AU both is and isn't a godling. The mask keeps his status almost entirely repressed cutting him off from both his hybrid side and his god side. Only a little bit can leak through.

This fucks him up over time for two reasons, first, exposure to XD. While XD does try to minimize his impact on c!Dream, the amount of time c!Dream spends exposed to a god does add up. It's part of why XD has relatively minimal contact with c!Dream during the SMP, since he's doing everything he can to avoid that poisoning going too far.

More importantly for the events of the SMP, at that point, c!Dream has killed his first god. He's growing up and his power is growing and starting to hit the limits of what the mask can contain. But the mask is still keeping him almost entirely human. And thus not immune to constant exposure to a god.

As such, he's effectively poisoning himself and the people around him to various degrees. He's got it the worst, but other people are affected to. So it's kind of like in medieval times where you just had an entire village of people tripping on ergot accidentally. Not quite as extreme, and certain people have more resistance, but a similar sort of vibe.

A big impact for his growing power is that he's also starting to get worshipers once the SMP gets founded. Full end gods don't really require worship and draw their power directly from the universe itself. But End Gods can still draw power from worship, and end godlings will often draw power from worship to complete their worship.

This extra power does come in handy once he's ready to kill that second god, but prior to that the extra boosts are significantly more dangerous and just make him worse. c!Sam, c!Punz, c!Wilbur, and to some extent c!Tommy are all guilty of a level of deification. It's mostly c!Wilbur's fault though because when he makes c!Dream the Big Bad Guy he starts that process of deification/dehumanization that helps push c!Dream over the edge.

Also while all of this is happening, XD is just kinda there biting his lip trying to figure out where he needs to intervene. It probably should've been awhile ago, but like, it works in the end, so whose the fool now?

[gcantread]

July 2024 reads

[loved liked ok nope dnf bookclub*]

^borrowing this format from @ofliterarynature—hope that's ok!

The Blue Castle • The Metamorphosis • A Reaper at the Gates • And Then There Were None • I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons • To Be Taught, If Fortunate • The Mysterious Affair at Styles • Till We Have Faces • This Ravenous Fate • Here Lies a Vengeful Bitch • Dragonhaven • [title withheld; SMP] • The Name of the Wind • Better Left Buried • The Body in the Library • Rose Daughter

My biggest reading month so far in terms of quantity, though only third-biggest in terms of "pages" (which I think is a bad metric anyhow—you can typeset them so differently! I wish every book told me its word count.) I read a lot of books in order to see if they're worth reading in @bellasbookclub for the 2024-2025 season, plus I was doing the BBC summer reading challenge! I also devoured my way through several ARCs coming out in August.

The Blue Castle ★★★★★ - I reread this once or twice per year at this point. This time around I read it to @flowerslut and we had a blast! Still the ultimate comfort read.

The Metamorphosis ★★★☆☆ - Also with Shannon (we listened to the audiobook on the way to and from San Diego!) Figured it was high time I actually read this if I was gonna go around calling things "kafkaesque." Somehow exactly what I expected.

And Then There Were None ★★★★☆ - Pre-screened for book club! So I don't wanna say too much other than "I liked it."

I'm Afraid You've Got Dragons ★★★☆☆ - Disappointing. Plot was a bit all over the place and it was difficult to sympathize with the main characters. A shame, because I like the premise!

To Be Taught, If Fortunate ★★★★☆ - Read for the BBC 2024 Summer Reading Challenge. Fun and reflective! This was my first time reading Becky Chambers, and I liked the writing style and themes.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles ★★★1/2☆ - Another book club pre-screen. A solid mystery.

Till We Have Faces ★★★★☆ - Yet another book club pre-screen. My best friend's favorite book and now I can totally see why.

This Ravenous Fate ★★★☆☆ - An ARC I got signed by the author after seeing her speak on a panel about YA and romance. Unfortunately a huge letdown, possibly because I had such high hopes for the premise of "queer Black 1920s vampire x human." Alas, it had some cool vampire lore but was overall a convoluted mess and not nearly 1920s-enough!

Here Lies a Vengeful Bitch ★★★★☆ - Another ARC I got from the same event and liked much better. Cool Jennifer's Body-esque premise, snappy voice, and a fun protagonist in the murdered and vengeful Annie. Perfect Halloween vibes!

Dragonhaven ★★★★☆ - Also pre-screened for book club so I shouldn't talk too much about it but I can't help myself (@ book club LOOK AWAY) I wasn't expecting much from this book because I've heard Robin McKinley fans voice their disappointment in it, but it turns out I'm the exact niche target audience for this. National Park politics and conservation science struggles and zookeeping?? I'm seated. I can see why others didn't like the pacing, but I was nodding along like "Yes, the difficulty of procuring grad students to come study dragons, of course. Do go on"

[title withheld; SMP] - I didn't realize this was an SMP book until I was halfway through it. Oops. A shame they still don't have their act together, because I'd love to talk about this one.

The Name of the Wind ★★★★★ - A title I've heard raved about a million times by a zillion people, so naturally I picked it as one of my BBC 2024 summer reading challenge books to see if it lived up to the hype. IMO it does! Fun, poetic writing style, cool framing device, and interesting worldbuilding and magic system. Curious to read the sequel.

Better Left Buried ★★★☆☆ - Another ARC. Cute queer YA murder mystery that I honestly don't have much to say about other than "it was cute."

The Body in the Library ★★★1/2☆ - And another book club pre-screen book. My first Miss Marple! Mostly elevated by having an interesting ending twist and class themes.

Rose Daughter ★★★☆☆ - And to no one's surprise, my final book of the month was also pre-screening for Bella's Book Club. Very pretty writing and it was fun to read while wearing a bit of rose oil (smell-o-vision!) but I didn't loooove the pacing and overall prefer Robin McKinley's other Beauty and the Beast retelling, Beauty.

DNF

A Reaper at the Gates (50%) - I sprinted through book 1 and walked sedately through book 2 of the Ember in the Ashes series, but this one (book 3) was taking me forever to read (and is almost 700 pages), and I was impatient to move on and read other stuff. Reaper at the Gates was decently interesting and I still care about the characters, but the timing just wasn't right. Will probably pick this series back up later.

July superlatives

[wixelt]

Btw, I've been working to flesh out characterization and worldbuilding for the Player Culture AU but, due to that technically being a mostly completely seperate AU from Hermitphibia, I'm probably only going to update you where it's relevant as to not flood your inbox with unrelated lore. I've been mostly going through SMP's to see if they have anything lore relevant and seeing where it would apply.

...

So anyway, Pirates SMP Scar is almost explicitly HC8 Scar and also shares the name of his previous sailing ship with New life!Scar's plane and I think The Hermatrix may have done essentially the same thing to the Hermits' memories The Core did to Marcy's memories to ensure they were for the most part versions of themselves that wouldn't catch on to being in a simulations, with the exceptions of Doc and Ren, who were made into versions of themselves that would catch on quick. Yes, this is rather the big assumption to make based just on Scar having continuity, but it's either this or decanonising The Hermatrix.

It also goes to explain some of Season 8's weirdness as a whole and opens the season's lore up to be used again... just not in it's surrounding context. Mumbo is probably a formless shapeshifter with half a soul, but it probably isn't Grian's and he's probably been that way since before joining Hermitcraft. The reason The Hermatrix accounted for Pearl's connection to the moon is because of the subconscious memories she still had but hadn't recalled. Impulse eats rocks because he both is and isn't a dwarf due to existing in like two or three points of his life simultaneously. Pearl's megabyte resembles the human settlement in S9 because, well,

Tl;Dr: either The Hermatrix is explicitly noncannon or it was fucking with the hermits' memories to make them relive moments of their pasts because otherwise I can't see how the entrepreneur who traveled by wagon went on to become a pirate and possibly later an air pilot.

Also Pirate!Scar's pirate hat is in Scar's room in Scarland and Pilot!Scar's head is in Cub's meuseum if I'm remebering correctly, both shown in Sausage's world tour.

(Glad to hear your culture interpretation's going well. Always interested to hear about it in relation to the Hermitphibia AU.)

I like the idea that the Hermatrix fundamentally shifted the Hermits' inherent selves to keep them safe (& that it echoes Marcy in canon/False in the AU), though I imagine its less making them different in personality & more unconsciously nudging them away from certain lines of thought they'd usually have.

The idea that this process embellishes or reinterprets certain traits of each Hermit is fun, too.

I don't know if some of the specific interpretations line up with the way I view things, though, but lets work through them one at a time:

Scar's timeline in my mind happens as released & I don't think too much Hermatrix shifting would be needed, nor would it be non-canon. The Hermits take on personas all the time (RenTheKing, etc.), & Scar of all people is very inclined towards that.

I don't know where the interpretation of Mumbo as a half-soulless shapeshifter comes from (aside from the potato thing, maybe), but I'm not sure if I buy it over, say, the view of him as a vampire. I'd be interested in hearing more, though.

Pearl's connection to the moon in the sim - name aside - stemming from her past lives is something I like. Makes it more than just a symbolic connection, & that'd be especially important in the AU as unless Pearl chose her name (which is plausible), Grian's surname would also be Moon.

Impulse eating rocks coming form his dwarf phase is something I'm going to steer clear of, unless we interpret that the Hermatrix was somehow predicting the future as well, since that was still a season away.

[inbetweenhours]

Having big feelings about my fanon Empires SMP timeline and worldbuilding so I'm handing out the list of the names I use for both the season one and two emperors, as well as their parents (and siblings).

I think I was doing slow reveal with my family doodles but I was looking at them again and I miss them, so names below the cut!

Note!

Names in quotations are the "true names" of characters who deal with fae naming conventions ;]

I bolded the cc's character names just for readability :]

Have fun! I don't offer any culture/lore explanations but if u wanna ask about why things are the way they are I'll answer reblogs and asks with delight!

SEASON 1

Queen Mairieth (Ansley) and Prince Consort Druindar (Devnet) of Rivendell, parents of Prince Smajor (Scott) and Prince Xornoth (Conan)

Lady Fable G and Lord Casilo E of House Sausage of Mythland, parents of Mythical J of House Sausage (I totally fucked this up in the art and called them king/queen, that's not true lol)

Empress Angie of The Ocean Empire, mother of Princess Lizzie and Prince Jimmy

Emperor Marley and Empress Kimber of The Lost Empire, parents of Prince Joey, Prince Mickey, Princess Nickey, and Princess Tammy

Lady Kitty (Kaitlyn-Aldreda) of House Blossom, parent of Lady Katherine(-Elizabeth)

Queen Ariel of Mezalea, predecessor of King Joel

Mr LeeryDoe & Ms KeenBronze from The Grimlands, parents of FailWhip* and GeminiTay

*FailWhip is Fwhip's given name, Fwhip is a nickname he prefers.

Guardian Jillian and Aureate Moon of Gilded Helianthia, parents of Pearlescent Moon

Queen Techna Riffs and Vigil Keeper Innov Riffs of Pixandria, parents of Pixl Riffs

Shrub Berry's parents canonically have names already (Fern and Rose Berry) so I havent replaced them :]

SEASON 2

Starting off saying because of how my fanon works for empires the following Emperors won't have named parents: Joel, False, Oli, & Gem 💔

Joram M of House Sausage, King of The Gilded Mythlands & Ms Saga, servant of House Sausage; biological parents of Mythical J (Sausage) of Sanctuary

Mrs Jessie & Mr William Solidarity from Tumble Town, parents of Sheriff Jimmy Solidarity

Mrs Clink & MrThwip from The Goblands, parents of Fwhip

Mr David SaorseBright & Ms Ailis MajorHart, parents of Lord Scott SaorseMajor of Chromia & Conan SaorseMajor

Mrs Taffy & Mr Jodie from Animalia, parents of Mayor Lizzie

Mrs Bonnie & Ms Rob from Eversea, parents of Pirate Joe

Queen Christine and King Theodore Elizabeth of Glimmer Grove, parents of Princess Katherine Elizabeth

Tekh RiffSafe & Jane Lakcrash from Cogsmeade, parents of Pix LakRiffs

I also named Witch Shelby's Grandmother Willow :]

That's everyone! Thank u for indulging me if you're reading this! I have so many thoughts about Empires <33

[minecraftrelatedrandomness]

Worldbuilding and Backstory Food for Thought

Source: Scott's Sept 20th stream (1:22:20–1:24:24 at linked unofficial VOD); transcript under cut for reference

Summary

p!Scott questions how the new pirates could have got past the Ice Wall into the Ecclesiae Sea and onto the Faction Isles

p!Owen and p!Apo make fun of him for allegedly being a sheltered nepo baby who doesn't know other people live in Ecclesia

p!Owen also reveals he's from an upper-class city called Oakhurst, spelling tentative as of time of writing

Questions

Because we genuinely don't know the geography of Ecclesia or the SMP world, I think p!Scott actually has a point – where did everyone come from? What is the geography of Ecclesia like?

Just because p!Owen assumes Oakhurst is located within the Ice Wall doesn't mean it actually is; we don't know enough about the geography of Ecclesia to tell yet

We know Ecclesia/the region near the Faction Isles have been used as a "shortcut" for trading ships (from one of the treasure quest descriptions), suggesting there is ocean beyond Ecclesia as well and land far beyond the area. We also know one of the navies lurk north of Ecclesia (from p!Sausage's backstory), that places like Naya and p!Eloise's hometown exist, etc.

Many questions about the Ice Wall: when did it first appear, if p!Owen never saw it? Who made it and how was it done? Why does it exist in the first place? We know it has something to do with the cultists and the corruption, but nothing concrete just yet

Annotation: This discussion was first made on the POWCreations Discord server on Sept 22nd, 2023

Transcript

S: Question: where are all these new people coming from? We're trapped in an Ice Wall. O: Yeah, they [Eret, Jojo, and Seapeekay] were– they just apparently woke up in a cage and there were some hooded figures in the island, like the island they were in. And then they escaped, I guess? And stole their ship, and now they're here. S: Yeah, but there was also new people [Shelby, Shep, and Sniff] yesterday as well. O: Yeah, just a coincidence, I guess. A: (overlapping) I think there's other people that live inside the Ice Wall besides us. O: Yeah, it's not just us, there's like, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people across this world. S: Just in the Ice Wall? O: Yeah! S: (out of character) [It's] the Simpsons movie all over again. O: Oh, wait, you've only ever lived on this island. S: Yeah. O: Apo, where'd you come from? S: (out of character) Where did you go? Where did you come from, Apo– I'm sorry. O: Like, you know, what town where you in before you came to the Faction Isles? Surely there were people there, right? A: Oh, you know, places and things and stuff. O: Okay, well, I was from Oakhurst. S: Ohh. Never heard of it. O: Yeah, no, no, you wouldn't have, it's quite a high-class place. So, yeah, I don't know– I came from there, and then I ran away, and I live here. But there was like– That was a whole city, there was people, I just choose not to go back. S: Oh, well, I mean– Is that within the Ice Walls? O: Yeah! […] I assume so, 'cause I sailed here on a trading vessel and we didn't hit an Ice Wall! S: True. Weird. Hm. O: Other cities exist. Of course, like, it's not even just us. If you look in, like, the Heron scripture banks, you'll find there's like, at least 50 Herons, they're just all out on missions right now. S: Well, I know that because I am a Heron, I know that other Herons exist. O: Oh, well, there you go, there you go! There's lots of people in the world! S: Yeah, it just felt strange. O: (to Apo) Oh, he's lived a sheltered life. It's okay. A: Yeah, nepotism baby, it's just how it is. O: There's no judgement. S: It feels like judgement. O: There's no judgement. A: It's okay, nepo baby. O: Mummy and Daddy will be back soon and then you won't have to meet any new people. S: You two are lucky I don't set the Kangacrew on you.

[amethystfairy1]

I showed TTSBC to my sister and now we’re both obsessed (which means I have someone to rant to about it, yay)! One quick little ask, because I’m going crazy: where’s Mumbo? I don’t think he’s even been mentioned once and I’m starting to make some wild theories within the confines of your incredible worldbuilding.

Hello, hello!

I'm so glad you and your sister have been able to rant about my AU, knowing it's been bringing fun discussions to other folks makes me so happy!

Oooooh, sharp-eyed readers might disagree, we have heard about Mumbo a few times, I assure you he has been mentioned 🤪 I can think of at least two major times, one of which actually gives away quite a bit about him...can you spot him?

It's like "Where's Waldo" but with a very impressive mustache! 🥸

I'll give you some peace of mind by letting you know that good ol Mumbo Jumbo will be receiving a piece of his own at some point, it is on the notes and in the planning stages, but I'm still sorting out the details. He does exist, so you'll get the chance to find out if your theories are on the money!

Thanks so much for coming by to say hi! 💖

(PS: I'll be sneaky and drop the fics where he does get a mention down here if you wanna go hunting for him 😆)

Fics mentioned in this post ⬇️