#xb 2 discussion

[startreklasirena]

What is Star Trek: La Sirena?

Most fans and more-than-casual viewers of Star Trek: Picard would probably agree that the three seasons of the show form something of an anthology. It was never officially called that, and some of the characters appear in (almost) every episode. Even some events and backstories do get referenced across season boundaries. But at the end of the day, each season is very self-contained, and many themes, storylines, and characters are limited in scope to one or two of them at the most.

Even the characterization of recurring characters can differ between seasons, from more superficial details (Agnes Jurati going by "Agnes" in S1 and "Jurati" in S2) to some deeper shifts (Elnor seeming more concerned with honour than candour in his brief season 2 cameos).

As such, some of us fans were thinking it would be helpful to have a shorthand with which to differentiate between seasons. Say you're interested in reading Saffi stories that centre the characters, themes, and characterization from season 1. It might be difficult to filter for that, since the "Star Trek: Picard" fandom tag on AO3 will contain fic that is set throughout all three seasons, and it won't always be clear where in the anthology it fits.

Or you might be writing stories about season 1 Agnes that you know won't sit right with people who expect season 2 Jurati when they filter for "Agnes Jurati", and you want to make it clear which version of the character you're writing about without using convoluted tags.

Enter Star Trek: La Sirena (suggested abbreviation: LAS). In essence, this is a shorthand to describe the first part of the Star Trek: Picard anthology. ST: LAS stories, art, gifs, meta, memes, etc centre around the characters, events, relationships, and themes from PIC season 1. They can be prequels, set during season 1, or take the end of season 1 as a jumping-off point to spin new stories from there (think: the sort of art/meta/fic/... you would have made before season 2 came out or if the show had been cancelled after season 1).

A Few Examples (or: is it Star Trek: La Sirena?)

A fic about the crew of La Sirena going on wild adventures after the end of season 1? That is basically what this tag was invented for! A gifset of Elnor and Soji's outfits throughout season 1? Absolutely! The story of how Seven came to join the Fenris Rangers, exploring her relationship to the work and what it means for her characterization post-Voyager? Yes please! Meta about how Hugh would have survived the crash of the Borg Cube and what the protected status of Coppelius and the defeat of Oh's armada mean for his work with the xBs? We'd be lucky to have it! A fic about how Raffi and Rios met that involves six OC's and a bunch of semi-sentient holograms? Sure! A Victorian AU, where Jean-Luc Picard, Duke of La Barre, has to navigate the uncertainties of (near) fatherhood when he suddenly finds himself with a young ward, Dahj Asha, after the mysterious disappearance of her parents overseas? Hell yes! (Also: Zhaban is his butler and Laris his housekeeper. Just saying.)

On the other hand: A discussion of how season 2's evil!La Sirena compares to her prime-universe counterpart? Doesn't really fit. A fic about Agnes and Shaw meeting at the academy and becoming fast friends? Also not really, since Shaw is very firmly a season 3 addition. Meta about Seven's changing hairstyles from VOY to season 1 to seasons 2 & 3? That is more general PIC territory, rather than LAS specifically. A gifset comparing the Troi-Rikers from TNG with their appearance in Season 3? Probably not. Not even if it also includes season 1.

All of these things are wonderful and we're lucky to have them in the Picard fandom! But they don't necessarily fit the brief of "Star Trek: Picard, if it had been cancelled after season 1."

Of course, none of this is an exact science! Say you wrote a post-canon story back in 2020, before we got any details about season 2. And say, by sheer coincidence, it includes Agnes breaking up with Rios and going off on a diplomatic mission with Soji, while Rios and/or Raffi join Starfleet. Does that fall under the LAS umbrella or not? At that point (and many, many similar ones), I'd say it's up to your own best judgement.

Where do I find/post Star Trek: La Sirena Stuff?

A bunch of people have started tagging their tumblr posts with "star trek la sirena" (or "star trek: la sirena". I'm afraid the variability is a cornerstone of the Trek-tumblr tagging experience 😅). It's not much yet, and a lot of things are reblogs, so they won't show up in the regular tag search. But hopefully, we can get this tag into more wide-spread use to make it easier for season 1 enthusiasts to find stuff they're interested in. (If you tag this blog in the replies to a post you think fits the brief, I will reblog it!)

Some writers have also added "Star Trek: La Sirena" to the fandom tags of their relevant fics on AO3. It's usually in addition to "Star Trek: Picard", since it falls into both categories, so it's more an additional filtering option/sub-fandom.

I'm not entirely certain this tagging is going to be permitted by the AO3 tag wranglers. I have written to AO3 support about this and am currently still waiting to hear back. I think there are precedents for similar sub-fandom distinctions, but I'm not sure what the logistical considerations might be behind canonizing a new fandom tag. If AO3 comes back asking people to re-tag their fic or deciding they won't be able to canonize the "Star Trek: La Sirena" fandom tag, we'll decide on a different tagging convention. I'll post here if and when I get a reply to my email.

Speaking of:

A Quick Note on the Role of this Blog

I'm not the fandom police. At the end of the day, this is an entirely made-up category, and how you interpret its boundaries is up to you. My goal here is not to exclude anyone or tell people they're doing fandom wrong, it's to make it easier for fans of one specific part of a very heterogeneous show to find art and stories and discussions they're interested in.

I want to really emphasise this: I'm not the high priestess of this fandom tag. I'm not the authority on what does and doesn't count. If you have a story or post that you think might be well-suited to be tagged as "Star Trek: La Sirena", but you're unsure, I'm happy to chat about it and give you my take, and/or to reblog it here and hopefully open the floor to others' opinions. If you think something I posted or reblogged doesn't really fit, please let me know, I'd be happy to hear your thoughts!

Mostly, I just want this blog to get the ball rolling for people in this corner of the Picard fandom to find each other and have an easier time sharing their work and their passion with each other.

So, that's what I'm doing here. If you have any ideas for events we might get up to as a community (I still dream of one day having a fanfic book club :D), posts you'd like me to reblog, meta you'd like to share, or anything else that might bring your fellow fans joy, I'm always eager to hear about it!

Thank you for coming along on this ride on our little speed freighter! I hope we'll all find community and a lot of fun with Star Trek: La Sirena!

[regionalpancake]

Character ask game!

For Seven:

What’s the lie your character says most often? What’s something that makes them laugh every single time? Be specific!

For Soji: What phrases, pronunciations, or mannerisms did they pick up from someone / somewhere else?

If invited to a TED Talk, what topic would they present on? What would the title of their presentation be?

For Seven:   What’s the lie your character says most often?

Any shade of “I’m ok / I’ll be fine / I don’t need help / I can do it by myself”, which makes sense not only in light of her past in the Collective, but also because of the people on Voyager who model that behaviour for her (cough Janeway cough)

What’s something that makes them laugh every single time? Be specific!

Had an amazing chat with @curator-on-ao3 and @procrastinatorproject about this one, and I reckon there must be some pretty dark xB humour. Something about humour making a shared trauma lighter, easier to process or less taboo to openly discuss. I (hopefully) looked at that in my Hugh fic Crow’s Feet :

“Hugh laughed.  // He laughed at the smell of barbecue from a dead man. He laughed at the bed he couldn’t sleep in it. He laughed at himself holding his face together in the shower and the fact that an arm that he didn’t even have anymore still hurt every day. // He laughed at the absurdity of the pain. // At the banality of the suffering. // And the laughing didn’t stop any of it hurting, but it did suddenly hurt less.”

One of the bits of (problematic sci-fi fav) Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein that always stuck with me, was when the biologically-human-but-raised-by-aliens character laughs for the first time.

“I’ve found out why people laugh. They laugh because it hurts so much … because it’s the only thing that’ll make it stop hurting”

The whole section is here, and feels very 'Seven' to me. Seven and the other xB’s have been through so much, a lot of which would be just unspeakable levels of suffering to the average Federation citizen. Having a community of people to share and process that traumatic history with, to know that you’re not alone, must help. 

Please imagine an post-reclimation xB with a Starfleet doctor in Lower Decks animation style:

Doctor: Have you taken in any of the sights since you arrived? I recommend the Klingon opera - those costumes? I couldn’t tear my eyes away! xBs: Bet I could. Doctor: … Doctor: … Doctor: Well I Think We’re All Done Here For Today

For Soji: What phrases, pronunciations, or mannerisms did they pick up from someone / somewhere else?

Of course there’s the Data-head-tilt™️ but the more interesting and horrifying answer to think about for this one is MADDOX (*muffled screaming*). What it must be like for Soji knowing that her personality was handmade? Did Maddox programme everything or was there algorithms involved that he just sort of tweaked as he went? Poor Soji. I love this narratively, and I loathe that they threw it all out the window in Season 2.

If invited to a TED Talk, what topic would they present on? What would the title of their presentation be?

I think she might be invited to do a talk with the hope that she’d speak on Synth Experience, or the implications of the lifting of the Synth ban. But really Agnes would be a better candidate for that, and Soji’s only very new to her understanding of Synths anyway. I think instead she’d speak on her specialism/ her research from the Borg Reclamation Project:

“Reclaimed Identity - An Exploration of Emerging Romulan Folkways in the BRP” And I would have a front row seat 🤓😎

✨Send me a Picard character and I'll answer some of these WEIRDLY SPECIFIC BUT HELPFUL CHARACTER BUILDING QUESTIONS ✨

[biblioflyer]

Evolving beyond your core conceits: risks and rewards.

Allowing a setting to grow while remaining recognizable and accessible to the audience is difficult. Too much of the wrong kind of changes can make a setting unusable for the themes and storytelling devices it started off with. It is, however, possible to grow without cheating the heroes of earned victories and without wholly divesting from core themes.

This is part 4 in a series of discussions about the pessimism of the X-Men setting, its origins, its consequences, and whether that’s even a fair assessment.

Part 1 laid out some of the core conceits of the setting.

Part 2 discusses theories of historical change.

Part 3 is about the messiness of allegories.

It's difficult to evolve beyond a setting’s original conceit without having to become something radically different, even unrecognizable.

I’m one of the people who started to lose interest when Stargate SG-1 moved beyond Earth as scrappy underdogs and essentially became a superpower, while still somehow being able to hide the entire program. Also it turns out that SG-1, regardless of the roster, always seemed to be exactly the right people in exactly the right place.

Committing to the bit has risks too.

The X-Files solved and then had to unsolve its core mystery multiple times, becoming ever more convoluted in an effort to ensure its gnostic pursuit of ever deeper mysteries did indeed have even more arcane conspiracies hiding behind the busted ones.

Core characters evolved in Supernatural, but after a few repetitions of the Winchester brothers gaining and then losing access to resources and networks of allies, it almost became a bit of a joke that everything always led back to the two living out of motels. Yet while the situation of the Winchesters wasn’t allowed to change much, the threat of each season had to be ever more cosmic. This ultimately resulted in a direct and extremely meta confrontation with the very force that ensured their lives always defaulted back to misery and watching any progress they made fall through their fingers.

The conceit of Star Trek’s Federation is that our contemporary flaws can be resolved, but to model solving its allegories for contemporary societal issues it has to periodically discover new -isms that have emerged within it that the Federation has rationalized away. 

Augment proscriptions are rationalized as protecting the egalitarian nature of the Federation and preventing the rise of superior beings with superior ambition, fully sentient artificial intelligence had a rocky road to recognition, people struggle with fully recognizing XBs as fellow victims of the Borg Collective rather than conflating them with the destruction and horror the Borg have perpetuated. 

There have been enough repetitions of the storyline that there is something rotten in the Federation that needs to be confronted and opposed that many (not I) feel like the Federation has undergone a very cynical deconstruction in the streaming era (although it would probably be more correct to say it started with DS9.) Which is part of why the “Magneto was right” discourse began to alarm me, because I associate it with the increased sense in the Trek fandom that the Federation is both rotten at its core and too naive to survive without the rot.

Kudos to Star Trek Discovery though for reliably shifting away from the “edgier” darker tone it began with and embracing the idealism of the TNG era. I realize there are those who look at a dark and fearful world full of war and revanchism and find it childish for fiction to be aggressively sunny, but I enjoy having a few things to watch here and there that stimulate my mind but don’t leave me drained and morose when the credits roll. I don’t mind good pessimism, but I never felt like Discovery was doing more than gesturing at more mature, emotionally and ethically complex themes in its early seasons. It's still not doing more than gesturing, but in my opinion it's no longer pretending to be more than thoughtful camp.

The Expanse novel-verse is one of the rare examples I can think of a setting that resolved one of its core conflicts, but still managed to be an effective vehicle for storytelling about many of the same themes. By the end of the original six book series, Earth and Mars are on the path to reconciliation and the Belters have won statehood and the means to prosperity. 

The sequel trilogy introduces a new nemesis that partly resets the setting, but critically the reset doesn’t put the Belters back under the boot of the Inners or restart the original cycle of violence. In many ways, Earth and Mars get a dose of what it’s like on the receiving end of imperialism.

In this way, the writers could still speak about war, cycles of violence, paranoia, various forms of oppression, and the difficult moral dilemmas of gray zone conflict but without victims becoming oppressors or having all of their gains rolled back.

Did you forget this was an article about X-Men, bub?

Which brings us back to X-Men.

Because X-Men is a setting dedicated to storytelling about oppression, a critical thing to remember is that things are not going to get better in any lasting way. 

Not because the message you are supposed to take away is that nothing can ever be better and trying to disrupt violence and humanize oppressed people is self defeating, but because showcasing oppression and the fight against it without it ever actually being resolved is its raison d’etre. 

Unlike the Expanse novels, the X-Men is not a closed storyline with a limited number of authors tightly controlling it. While specific iterations of X-Men could, in theory, make progress against the core human vs mutant conflict without rolling it back in a devastating way, there is an expectation that X-Men more broadly is a bit like Coke or Pepsi: consistency and recognition across all “products” is a baked in assumption. X-Men without the mutant vs human conflict could drift away from the otherwise very low barrier to entry for the audience.

The last installment will discuss how X-Men '97 does leave the door open to some things getting better even though the general state of affairs seems poised to get pretty bad.

[minecraftbookshelf]

The LiveAndLetRain Master-Master Post

Because tumblr search function is notoriously unreliable, to the point im struggling to find my own things when i want them for reference so im making this, mostly for myself but if you want to use it go for it!

That being said, my tag for my original posts is #rain rambles

I tag all the Technoblade memorial art I reblog with #technoblade never dies (specifically the memorial-vibes art, so this is a bit subjective but just a heads up if this is something you want to avoid)

I am on AO3

This is my pinned post on my main which is an index of all my fandom specific sideblogs

MASTER POSTS:

The AU In Which All the Marriages Are Arranged/Marriage of State AU Empires SMP Season 1 AU featuring fantasy agricultural economics and linguistics and arranged marriages that cover the full romantic-platonic spectrum. This is my major project, currently. Everything relating to it an be found under the tag #marriage of state au and the master post has important posts, fics, art, and organizational tags linked on it.

Avatar: The Legend of Jimmy Group discussion and brainstorming post that has spawned at least one au, and some fic and art

FANFICTION:

Adventures in Grian-Napping (Life Series Urban Fantasy AU based off of Grian’s LimLife AFK Episode) COMPLETE - Tumblr || AO3

Limited Life Oneshots - Tumblr 1 2 3 || AO3

The Elements of an Inter-Dimensional Prison Break (Life Series & Evolution SMP AU taking place overlapping and at the end of Limited Life) WIP - Tumblr Part 1 Part 2 || AO3 || Summarized [Currently in stasis while i rework it and revamp it]

To Walk A Mile In Each Others Shoes (My take on the concept of Double Life soulbond pairs sharing physical traits and abilities over the bond) COMPLETE - Team Ranchers || Team Box || Dessert Duo || The Boat Boys || The Homewreckers || Bad Math || Tilly Death Do Us Part || AO3

Gone Fishing (Life Series Urban Fantasy AU ft. Gaslight, Gatekeep, Girlboss + Martyn. Oneshot) COMPLETE - Tumblr || AO3

Flip-Flopped Hermits (ficlets written for the hermit fanon swap prompt meme) STANDALONE COLLECTION, WIP - AO3 || Tumblr - Hypno & Stress Cub & xB and Pearl & Mumbo (bonus Grian) Gem & Impulse Etho & Bdubs

Marriage of State AU Series WIP - AO3 || Tumblr links in the AU masterpost

After the End (SOS SMP post-finale ficlet ft. fWhip and Joey. Two alternate endings, I recommend reading the second one first) COMPLETE - AO3 || Tumblr Ending 1 Ending 2

LIFE SERIES (and overlap) META & THINKY THOUGHTS:

Concerning Patterns Out of Context Snippet from Future Fanfiction Shortform 3rd Life Ren & Joel Compare/Contrast Repeating Patterns: Smajor, Ren, & Martyn 3rd & Last Life Ethoslab & LDshadowlady Final Death Scars || The Diagrams Thereof: TAG FOR THE UPDATED VERSIONS The original posts: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Martyn's Betrayal Watcher Lore Meets Hermitcraft Recap Rain Judges the Watchers for Feeding Inefficiently Middle Child Jimmy Solidarity Evolution/Life Family Tree & Relationship Web (Updated version at the bottom of the post) Falling Birbs This one messed up my notifications inbox for like two days and it is specifically inthelittlewoods fault Life Series Wing Headcanons 3rd Life Flower Husbands: Fated Tragedy Scott Smajor Has Been Spiting the Watchers Since Third Life The Ship Burns Everything Burns The More Things Change The More They Stay The Same

RANDOM BITS AND BOBS:

Life Series Lore/Bit Poll OG Edition (Season Specific Follow-up Coming Soon!) Watercolor Sniffer Skizzleman Skizzleman Does Whatever A Skizzle Can The True Potential of Empires S1: Scott and Gem's kidnapping MCYT Wings: Grian || Jimmy Solidarity || Pearlescentmoon || Philza || Hannahxxrose || Geminitay (not wings but close enough) Mumbo Jumbo was the EvoSMP Escape Plan All Along Empires S2 White Collar AU For the Poor? My Most Correct MCC Opinion The Price of Being Birb

[isagrimorie]

Do you have a Trek episode/moment you currently can't get out of your mind? If so, why?

Trek Talks

I have several!

I think currently what's living rent free in my head are the Janeway moments in Year of Hell, the Seven moments in The Gift, and Picard's breakdown in Family.

The moment before the Jem'hadar attack in Seige of AR355 Bashir starts playing music. The moment in the bar between Ro Laren and Picard in Picard s3.

But weirdly what's going over my head again and again is the moment in Human Error when the Doctor is doing a routine check-up on Seven and discovers her 'biradial clamp' is out of alignment and she's experiencing shoulder pain. It struck me because I tried to watch Melora from DS9 -- I'm sure they had the best intentions there but yikes.

And I'm sure the writers didn't mean to and weren't writing to it-- and maybe that's why it worked with Seven but it felt more realistic how Seven is treated and acts than the kind of emotional porn the writers were after in Melora.

It also made me think about Seven in between Voyager and Picard -- Seven looked cool in Stardust City Rag but she also looked rough and frankly her ocular implant didn't look as well maintained. And I wondered how often Seven even has a chance to get maintenance check for her cybernetic systems.

She doesn't even say anything about shoulder pain because it might be a constant with her. And with the attitudes of people towards xBs in the Alpha Quadrant she can't just go to anyone.

It's why I feel, after she's finally had good relations with Starfleet again in between seasons 1 and 2 of Picard she started looking better and @dealanexmachina and I were discussing-- maybe the xBs in Coppelius help her do a whole system check. The infusion of brand-new nanoprobes while she was briefly a Queen might have helped too because Seven did look better post-'Queen Cell'.

And all these thoughts, of course, lead to the missed moments in season 2 -- and why 10 episodes isn't enough because if they had the space I would have loved it if they took more than a few seconds to acknowledge how weird it would be for Seven to be in a fully organic body.

The trade-offs of having a fully organic body vs the cybernetic body she's had all her life.

It's just a spiral from there until I reach the point where I start thinking about Omega and how for half of that episode, Jeri Ryan carried the show by herself-- it's not something a lot of actors can do. She should seriously have a show on her own after Voyager because she has the chops to be Number One in the Callsheet.

[hmshermitcraft]

Hermitcraft is basically a huge polyamorous relationship, and xB has been a member since season 2, sure but he's never been a part of it. He's been flirted with but he knows they're just fooling around, it's happened a couple of times where he's thought people weren't, but they were actually flirting on a dare and he got horribly embarrassed, actually, it's happened a lot, he doesnt think he can trust that anymore. So when Bdubs and Keralis invite him on their date off-server, he's scared. He's not going to say no of course, he isnt immune to their huge eyes, but he's scared about what will happen during it. He hopes it isnt a joke.

-C

He'd like to think they aren't the kind of people to do this on a dare, but... They would be. For the right kind of dare, the right risk or reward. It leaves a chilling feeling in his chest, even as he prepares for the date.

If he's going to be made a mockery of (again) he might as well look good doing it. Show them what they're missing.

He doesn't expect for Bdubs and Keralis to also be dressed up when he arrives. Nor for them to be excitedly discussing their date, each of them holding one of xB's hands.

He has a good night with them, even if he's constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. It never does. Keralis gives him a kiss on the cheek at the end of the night, whilst Bdubs already seems to be planning the next date for their triad.

Maybe, just maybe, xB can let his guard down this time...

[cracklyy]

I have more questions, if you please! Just a heads up, it's a lot of questions about the Duck lives au.

1. As he gets older, would Duck start to want to be called Kenny Jr, or would he just make Duck his real name, because calling him Kenny would remind him of his dad and make him sad?

2. I know you said that Duck and James are a thing, but what is Duck's sexuality? Does he have a label or is he unlabeled?

3. When Duck was at Howes, how did he act? Was he trying to follow the rules, most likely because of potential consequences, or was he lashly out, being a rebel?

4. When Kenny was going to kill Carver, did Duck and/or Clem stay to watch.

5. When Kenny starts becoming more unstable, would Duck try to justify what Kenny is doing, or would he start gradually distancing himself? And how would his relationship with Jane be, depending on the answer.

And 6. During the Kenny v Jane fight, would Duck or Clem shoot Kenny or let Jane die.

P.S I'm sorry if this is a lot of questions, I just want to know more

I'm just for the questions! I'm very glad you're asking, it's fun!

1. I think yes, with age he would like to be called Kenny Jr, he would wear this name with pride. But the closest ones (Clementine, Alvin Jr) could address him as Duck, and they got used to it, and he is comfortable hearing his "nickname" from his family.

2. I think Duck wouldn't be familiar with the concept of sexualities, he just loves and wants to be loved xb. But if we are speaking orientations - then, most likely, he is pansexual/panromantic. He just has no idea what it is called.

3. I think he was trying to analyze the situation at first. He genuinely liked Walter and his ski station, and after he was killed, Duck hated all the people who were on Carver's side. In Hawes, he would definitely snap at Bonnie, for him, her deception was an extremely low act as well as her attempts to get closer & cheer him up. In general, he would not have gone into trouble, but since his emotions are very open, his contempt for Carver would have been noticeable, and Carver himself did not like it. Just like Clem, he helped with the escape

4. Oh, an interesting question! I still think no, I wouldn't. Duck is an emotional person, but at the same time he knows how to control anger well (this is from his mother). Duck would not have liked this side of his father; he would not have dissuaded him from beating Carver, but he wouldnt have stayed to watch it either. I think Clem would have left with Duck in this situation. They wouldn't try to discuss Kenny's actions in general, planning on what to do next instead

5. This is a really difficult question. I've been thinking about it a lot too. I think he would not have been close to Jane's philosophy about loneliness and in general they would not have been very close (still, he did not look very much like her younger sister). But he also didn't like his father's aggression. At first, he would justify his father's difficult fate and the loss of Sarita, but then his aggression would become more and more annoying to Duck. During Jane and Kenny's fight, he would have been more scared than ever. In the end, he would not be able to pull himself together and the last decision would be left to Clem. In my AU, she would not have intervened in Jane's murder, she and Kenny would have walked to Wellington and said a tearful goodbye there. Kenny would have given Duck his cap and said something like "see you later, son." I think Duck understood that they had a better chance of surviving with a small child in Wellington, besides, he still hadn't been released after Jane's murder, and Duck wouldn't have protested much against Kenny's desire to leave them here. Perhaps later he would regret it and think about how his father was in solitary there, but with age these thoughts would become less. Still, his father didn't handle the new world very well.

6. I answered it at 5 :D

Your questions help me come up with some more details myself & inspire me greatly, thank you for that!! Always feel free to ask more questions :D

[sonocomics]

Will there be a comic about Nia's feelings for Rex (and Rex's response, of course)?

We've already passed that point, and the game made it "funny" enough methinks so nah o:

[riacte]

Hermitcraft on r/place — Dawn of the Second Day (2/4/2022)

(An even longer summary)

Day 1 Day 3 Part 1 Day 3 Part 2 Day 4 Part 1 Day 4 Part 2

(Once again obligatory disclaimer that this is made extremely dramatic and is about Reddit pixel geopolitics. I am speaking from the point of view of a Hermitblr main who is suddenly active in the HC Reddit Discord server. Even within the discord, we're divided and I won't lie and say I'm not biased. Also I certainly do not know everything that goes on, times might be a little blurred, etc etc.)

Copying the summary from the last post: Basically, r/place is Reddit’s April Fools joke for 2022 (it launched in 2017). It’s a large pixel canvas in which users can place a single pixel every 5 minutes. This time, it’ll last for three days until April 5th midnight (Eastern time). Naturally, r/HermitCraft decided to get going and leave their spot and be preserved in Internet history.

1. The Hermit Ensemble + The Calm Before the Storm

As a person living in the European timezone, I woke up to find all 26 hermits (+ Jellie and Nugget) have been built. Was also pleasantly surprised to see a hardcore heart, Last Life hearts and cute hearts between the owners and their pets. Our MC neighbours had also expanded, and best of all, our longtime nemesis (read: for a day), the GME (Gamestock) line, was appeased by our purple portals so it wouldn't cut through our beloved logo.

(Image from this Reddit post, note that the hardcore heart is half-constructed next to the Watcher symbol)

While it looked amazing, tensions were rising. As discussed in the previous post, we were carefully maintaining our borders as not to expand too much. I was present for the downward expansion into Love Live (red-haired girl) and Argentina territory, and LL wanted us to keep the pixel art for the top of their head (seen bordering an upside-down Pearl below Scar). While a couple of us helped maintain the line, we eventually gave up and LL accepted it. Apparently Brazil ceded us some of their tiny flags during the night so we built Xb, Zed and Hypno, but in the morning apparently mini Brazil was not affiliated with Big Flag Brazil, and they were the rogues.

2. Who's contributing to Hermitcraft Place?

It must be said that the Reddit discord itself is very much split. After lots of panicking about the rogue Redditors expanding, many joined the discord to communicate. I'm biased as hell but I'll try to briefly summarise the main types of people:

1. The Expansionist

More murals! More heads! More hermits! We can also build heads from Empires or Last Life! Surely Brazil and Argentina don't need their tiny flags because they have their big ones, and our pixel art adds more "value" to the canvas. We can ask them for more space! (Note: this type is commonly what we call the "rogues", however they argued they might be the majority instead, so it depends on how you see it)

2. The Defensive

Uhh, guys? Let's not expand anymore. We barely managed a truce with GME and Brazil. HOLD THE LINE. We need to fix our logo whenever it becomes Kermitcraft or Hermitcrapt (both of these jokes stopped being funny after being replaced five thousand times). We should fix our heads whenever they get griefed.

Then we also have different views on our neighbours:

3. The Distrustful

Brazil is SO gonna attack us because we took their tiny flags. We must man the border and be wary. We cannot focus on anything else! Also the *shudders* void might come for us! We cannot afford to slip up! Protect what we have at all costs!

(The Void is a griefing subcommunity (??) that exists within the r/place ecosystem, basically they spam black blocks to destroy anything. Think of it as the apocalypse to our hermit mural. It's our greatest fear, the everlurking feeling of death and despair. You might've heard of the Blue Corner and the Green Lattice which are similar but not as aggressive. The Void is scary. We're not scared of the Lattice or the Corner.)

4. The Diplomat / The Appeaser

We can give Brazil back some of their tiny flags because we got every hermit down already. We don't need to expand, we need to make PEACE with our neighbours so they won't backstab us. We need excellent contacts and mutual pacts of non-aggression. Don't be greedy.

5. The Helpful

We must help DSMP when they're invaded by the void/ amongi. Also, lots of our smaller allies are being consumed and we should use our pixels to repair their works! Gotta be helpful!

Needless to say communication is getting more and more difficult, but we managed surprisingly well. After all, we got EVERY SINGLE HERMIT on the board and we defended ourselves against the bigger GME community. However, not everyone was so lucky.

3. Fall Of Our Allies (rip)

Lots of smaller communities had (note the past tense) taken up residence next to Hermitcraft. Some we had swallowed (rip MCC chicken, rip OwO/ UwU Unikitty that we helped to recolate downwards), some we were strongly allied with (MCC), and some that were barely surviving.

Shoot or Run was a small Hypixel community that set up next to us, they made a few heads next to our leftmost row of hermits. They made an axolotl which was HEAVILY mistaken for Xisuma, and people had to wrangle them into not griefing. Unfortunately, they died, leaving behind several spaces that we were keeping as backup / open space for negotiation. You can still see the axolotl in the first pic; we kept it as tribute to our fallen ally. RIP SOR, 2k22. We are loyal to our Minecraft sphere to the bitter end.

Skyrim was another smaller community struggling to get their dragon in place around the SpaceX area. They called for our assistance, we tried to help, but their red dragon was also unfortunately dissolved.

HYPE (??) was a four letter word to the left of Cub, we were wrangling rogues into NOT expanding next to Cub. I don't know anything about HYPE but felt the need to defend it. Whenever people tried expanding, we would call out "HELP THE E" and fix the pixels. HYPE was then devoured by North Macedonia, the yellow/red striped flag below them, and we were spread too thin to help our beloved HYPE.

SpaceX aka Sex Sex or Sexy Sex wanted to reform. We supported them, however their logo would require piercing through some of our hardcore hearts and they might take the Scott that we hastily slapped on to prevent Generik from being on the board (since he burnt bridges with a lot of hermits). But instead of making it SpaceX, they changed their design to stop the Sexy Griefing (okay this term is funny), and ended up not intruding into Scott or the hearts. So it's all cool with Sex Sex.

Wheatley is the pixel art to the left of our mural. We encroached on a bit of their border and once again tried to stop expansion. It's still kind of there, but the rapidly rising North Macedonia is threatening its existence.

Love Live is... intact. Nothing much happened after we resolved the Pearl-Ruby border (wait, they're both gem names, nice). In this case, no news is good news.

Pretty sure we swallowed a copper ingot in our westward expansion, but it got relocated so it's all good.

DSMP, which is apparently organised in the Technoblade discord, was doing well against the void and amongi. We kept a careful eye on them because we have similar murals of Minecraft heads. If anything happened to them, it might happen to us. The subject of the DSMP mural is quite interesting because HC Reddit Discord is not as enthusiastic about DSMP than, let's say, tumblr. However, we understand that we are fellow MCYT fans and we are making murals promoting our servers. We are sisters and must be allied even if we are far from each other. HC Discord might not be a fan of DSMP, but they understand we are united to leave our mark in r/place history. Also people think it's just sad to see them get obliterated by amongi. They might not like DSMP, but they dislike amongus even more.

4. Movements Around the Camp

So Brazil had its rogues, Hermitcraft had its rogues, and Taiwan (directly above Brazil) also had its rogues. Mini Taiwan flags (the rogues unaffiliated with the Big Taiwan Flag) took up where DotA2 died yesterday, which bordered MCC. We watched them with concern, but then mini Taiwan and mini Brazil (both rogues apparently??) started fighting among themselves. A representative from Big Taiwan Flag came to say they meant peace and proposed working with HC to control mini Taiwan and use mini Taiwan's area for pixel art. However, Taiwan had no borders with HC, only MCC, so we redirected them to the MCC livechat.

The GME line was also being ruined inexplicably, and while HC fought ruthlessly against the expansion of the line, we had grown used to our old enemy. HC would not stand a chance if GME attacked, so we had to keep peace with them. We started repairing the damned line to maintain peace in the region.

In an effort towards peace, a tiny pink heart was made below Hypno bordering mini Brazil. Big Brazil Flag also announced they wanted to take over the mini Brazil flags (which were getting dangerously close to our eastern Hermits) with pixel art, and seeing it as an option for peace, we happy agreed. Diplomats from Brazil were freely chatting in our discord. So a beautiful blue macaw was built standing above our logo with help from HC. All seemed well.

Then-

The rest of Brazil attacked.

5. The Brazil-Hermitcraft Crisis / Struggle for Stability

People have been worried about Brazil for ages. From the beginning when their mini flags swallowed half of our initial design, forcing us to extend our "craft" into their territory, to when sneaky green pixels infiltrated our eastern hermit border of Xb, Zed and Hypno. Affectionately named "mold", we fought to restore the hermits. The last letter of "Hermitcraft" was also occasionally poked and prodded, but otherwise the logo remained untouched.

It is possible we got away with our eastern expansion because Brazil was asleep. So when they woke up, some of them were unhappy with the three hermit heads breaching the GME line, especially when the initial agreement was that HC would stick to the left of GME (but we ran out of space). They began to invade our heads AND our logo, and discord started panicking about an attack. They also wanted to put a head of their Brazilian MCYT, which I actually quite like as it bridges the gaps between Brazil and HC. Brazilian diplomats poured in to negotiate while HC Discord remained divided and very, very fearful.

Many of us were angry that Brazil was invading when we'd helped them with their pixel art bird. Brazil was angry that we encroached on their territory while they were sleeping. Since SOR was dead (RIP), and HYPE was also killed, we actually had enough space to retreat to the West and bring our three hermit heads there. However, that was widely agreed as our last resort, and we were holding onto those patches of land for negotiation. But then a lot of our Western allies were either dead or didn't want to expand anymore, so theoretically it was feasible to move. However, HC was extremely conscious of the logo invasion. Half of the logo stuck into Brazil. To us, the logo was our core. It was the only remnant of our original design, our original goal. It also bordered MCC and we would NOT give them up. The main Brazil faction actually told us they were not coordinating to get to our logo, but some random people / trolls / people who were mad were doing so.

HC was torn. To retreat, or not to retreat? Initially, people didn't like the idea of moving. Tensions mounted and spats between the two sides flew back and forth. Efforts were made to calm everyone down. Ironic how HC was concerned with rogue Brazil invading the logo when Brazil had no control, just like rogue HC creating Iskall bordering Argentina when HC had no control. Brazil and HC discords could NOT control their rogue counterparts, and the mutual frustration appeared to make things slightly better.

In the end, HC agreed to retreat to the graves of SOR and HYPE, but Brazil would NEVER touch the logo (except for the rogues they couldn't control). This was the best solution, and thus began the mass migration of our beloved Xb Zed and Hypno heads. HC discord was practically shouting to make sure everybody understood which spot we were moving them into. At the same time, the rogue attacks on our logo remained relentless, which meant we had to take care of defence and migration at the same time. North Macedonia was also NOT helping by steadily encroaching on LL's hair. Despite the shaky agreement, tensions remained high. People were extremely jittery as they moved, pixel by pixel, the hermits to the West. We also had to shout towards HC Reddit to STOP rogue efforts there.

To make matters worse, our sister community DSMP was facing a void invasion again. We helplessly watched as pixel by pixel, their Minecraft heads vanished into the void. Calls were made to help DSMP, but HC had just narrowly avoided a war and was now very anxious. Our forces were spread thin and we could not afford to aid DSMP at the moment.

At the very least Brazil seemed pleased. They were relieved that we came to an agreement. We also complained about our rogues and said to look out for each other's borders.

We frantically moved our pixels while sending anxious looks at our discord servers, and then suddenly-

A flash of white.

6. A New World

The Reddit Gods fucking expanded the canvas and added more colours. Brazil, which was to the extreme right, was suddenly free to expand more. Hermitcraft was suddenly in the center of the map. There was a whole new canvas to explore and mark, brand new, completely unexpected. The entire game had changed. The world had turned upside down. Seemingly infinite resources appeared in the blink of an eye.

I have never been more frustrated with the inability to swear in the HC discord.

What the actual fuck.

After a tense negotiation with Brazil, we suddenly saw that Brazil was very much free to go right. People started yelling at them to go (lmao). Brazil rogue forces stopped attacking our logo and favoured eastern expansion. Hermitcraft discord practically EXPLODED, brimming with nervous energy and excitement.

What happens now? The area just got expanded to twice of its size. If Brazil moved, we would suddenly gain a large canvas to work on. The new colours meant we could add better shading for all hermits. What do we do now? And oh FUCK, we're in the middle of the canvas, we might be a target of void, oh no oh no-

Efforts were made to wrangle everyone together. The mood between Brazil and HC instantly relaxed, with talks of creating a collab to show goodwill. Meanwhile, Brazil was going ham and marking their newfound territory. Braincells were being bounced around like crazy.

Expansionists were shot down because our forces were barely able to hold our murals. Our minds were a bit boggled by the sheer increase of free land, but we had to stay focused. We had to lay low and keep ourselves from being a target. Also, we had to wait for the situation to stabilise. We should be grateful for all that we managed to hold on the second day.

DSMP, being eaten by the void, was another thing that popped up. People suggested moving them next to us to form a whole MCYT sphere, but that was also shot down because two areas of Minecraft heads next to each other would be a GIGANTIC target, especially with the "Minecraft is cringe" rhetoric. It would be best to separate for our mutual survival.

Needless to say everybody on r/place absolutely LOST IT when they saw the canvas had expanded.

7. Settling In (Again)

After some time, people started to settle in the new world. Designs were made to make a heart with Brazil, who was having their time of their lives expanding- and fighting the void there. o7 Brazil, keep standing!

HC slowly but surely started improving the colours and shadows on the hermit heads. More projects were made on the new side of the canvas, including MCC team icons at 1790, 120. You love to see it!

Shoot or Run is apparently miraculously alive (or came back from the dead), good thing we saved that axolotl for them! :D

Macedonia, who swallowed our allies HYPE and OwO (rip), was suddenly nuked. Reportedly, negotiations had failed between Macedonia and Love Live (I'll give you a sec for the hilarity of the statement to settle in, discord found it funny), and now all of our allies are nuking Macedonia. Love Live persuaded us to help by promising us the blue spot of Macedonia's future but inevitable grave, and I think HC wants to build EvilX or Ely.

As I'm writing this, Macedonia recently got destroyed, and SpaceX just sent us a draft of the territories each neighbour would gain. The Macedonia situation cracks me up because they refused to communicate and started expanding so every neighbour started shitting on them LMAO. And now they're gone <3

I have no idea how accurate the map below is but it is SO FUNNY to me. We're dissecting the grave of Macedonia. We're bringing Hype back, SpaceX is no longer Sexy, Nano is floating below us, Hermitcraft and Love Live are allies. Geopolitics amirite?

Also Fuck Cars is apparently fighting with Brazil (our NEW ALLY with our CUTE NEW HEART). Their road just cut through Brazil, rip. Brazil is also our ally if the void comes for us. To our great relief, DSMP is also standing tall and proud with beautiful golden borders and the amongi/ void threat is gone... for now.

The new canvas certainly created new dynamics. I've written too much about this and will be calling it a day.

Again, if you want to contribute, DO NOT EXPAND ON YOUR OWN. Please join the HC Reddit discord. Pop by to defend our main area and don't attack our neighbours! GME and Brazil, two of our ex-biggest threats, are chill rn. We would like to keep it that way.

Have fun <3 also thanks for reading this monstrosity. I don't know if I can keep this up.

[hermitcraftheadcanons]

Scattered AU Masterpost Part 2 [COMPLETE]

Due to post length limit (which is apparently a thing), this AU has been split into two parts. Find Part 1 here!

Join the Discord server here!

Contributions:

- Mumbo has a pet ravager miscellaneous ideas: the ravager is actually a bit small as far as ravagers go. Once Mumbo leaves to go to the hermits, he doesnt take the ravager with him, for fear the environment wouldn't be right for it. However, the ravager follows him and Iskall, startling both when it comes running up to Mumbo. The ravager does not like any of the hermits, however it doesn't attack them because it can understand that Mumbo cares about them. - anonymous

- related to scattered au and "what if this happened to old hermits too" -- python's stuck in a death loop in a bastion (his spawn is right next to a piglin brute). he has no clue what's going on but by god, does he blame zloy - Anonymous

- Consider: Etho's mask protecting him from the flowers that gave Hypno so much trouble. - @/rayveewrites

- (Scattered AU) After Etho dies accidentally at the spawn haven, his spawn takes him to Xisuma. Xisuma is clinging to life when he gets there, and Etho only has time to grab his admin's arms and promise he'll be found before Xisuma passes away. Etho and Xisuma get a few hours together to work on getting Xisuma to the surface before Etho starves to death, and he's transported somewhere else. After that Etho makes it his mission to cycle through spawns as quickly as possible to help Xisuma and anyone else who is trapped in their spawn graveyard, no matter how much his legs start to fail him from the damage starting to linger from building into the sky and leaping off to respawn over and over. - @/petrichormeraki

- Some honorable mentions from my written summary for mumbo in the au: the illigers being terrified as he keeps coming back no matter how many times they kill him; he gets adopted by evoker; he fails at evoker magic, like so bad he cant even dye a sheep; the evoker being so done with mumbo that they beg the vex to give him magic; mumbo summoning scar when the vex get annoyed at how often he summons them, mumbo eventually summoning bdubs after scar's contract to mumbo runs out.... and so much more - @/therainofsweetmelody

- Moobloom!Hypno attracts bees - @/itsabork

- Not too long into his messenger journey, etho remembers what had happened to impulse by the time he, zed and tango had found him, which inspires him to try and die in a different way each time he sets off to find another hermit, partly to avoid becoming resiliant to certain death methods and partly for the challenge - Anonymous

- Because Doc hasn't died his death messages haven't been showing up in the chat. The other hermits don't know if he's even in the same world as them. - Anonymous

- (Scattered AU) More on the Mumbo accidentally summoning Scar thing; the summoning has "opened" the chat for them, but only between Mumbo and Scar. All evokers can call on their Vex, after all, so why not an evoker in more-or-less training? - @/petrichormeraki

- (alternate headcanon) There's so much discussion in the server, I wouldn't know where to start restating. However, I wanna mention one thing: scar spawning in xisuma's first spawn, deep in a geode down under ground. Being trapped in an endless death loop due to the warden lurking just outside the geode, forcing scar into the same loop xisuma had been trapped in so long ago. Not only does he have to deal with the separation from bdubs once they got out of the end, now he seemingly cant escape the warden's clutches.... - @/therainofsweetmelody

- Admins log who knows how long: I've finally managed to get my helmet some repairs with this I could get some plugins to start working hopefully. Considering the situation going on, I better not have derped to hard on this, not now. - Anonymous (singleplayer sleep now works)

- (Scattered AU) Because the code is glitchy for mob hermita, Jevin would spilt when injured too much. So while X and Jevin are trying to get to the surface, they encounter a dungeon or a mineshaft and Jevin gets fatally injured. X starts freaking out cause he doesent want to be alone again and he cant bear to watch Jevin die infront of him and risk getting lost and seperated and Jevin just splits, theres two Jevins now and X doesent know what to think of it.While there are two Jevins, their consienceness is split between the two and his motor skills are more sloppy and X notices and realises that Jevin loses more of himself the more he splits. So while he has a lower chance of losing Jevin to an unfortunate accident, Jevin slowly reverts to a slime the more be splits and the more be spends time as multiple entities. X worries that if Jevin splits for too long or too much, he might lose Jevin - @/itsabork

- The only portal to get out of Hels and into the overworld is an incredibly complex vault boarder line weapon built by Hels Doc and Hels Mumbo and the location of the portal is known only to a few and it changes every season. Now cue Helsknight and Wels sneaking all around Hels while trying to look for this basically impossible to find and get into way home. - anonymous

- It takes a while, but eventually those outside of hermitcraft start wondering why all the hermits collectively disappeared. Sure, they started a new world, and sure they’re usually more secluded, but it’s been months. Skizz wonders why he hasn’t heard from Impulse in a while. All the legates wonder where Python went. Everyone’s confused when none of the hermits turn up to the next MCC. Things get weirder when none of them sign up for the one after. -🟣

- Ok to add on to the daisy ravenger post, on his way to 0,0 Mumbo found spawn spawn, slo when he arrived everyone had him at sword point, expecting angry illiger noises they were surprised when they herd "GUYS IT'S ME!!" - Anonymous

(Note: Hermits at the haven currently include Joe, Beef, Hypno, Scar, Bdubs, TFC, Mumbo, and Iskall, in order of arrival. XB is en route, and Etho was there briefly before dying and respawning elsewhere.)

- Pix and Zloy would be the first to notice the hermits' absence. After all, they do a weekly show about them. Maybe they just decided to have a few weeks of downtime before moving to the next Season? Though surely it wouldn't take this long... - @/rayveewrites

- because im a legacy sucker, the legates would likely be the first to notice the hermits' disappearance. between zloy being on the server, skizz being part of zits and very close to impulse, pearl knowing a few hermits, plus python literally disappearing. what they'd do about it? no idea.to keep it more on the topic of hermits though, don't think about how devastated skizz would be to find out what impulse went through. don't think about it :) - anonymous

- Hello I have produced thoughts! I don’t have room for both so I’m sending 2 asks -when Iskall arrives at the mansion all of the illagers are wary; if one of mumbo’s friends are here then he must be leaving soon. Despite their initial feelings they’ve come to care about this idiot that wandered into their house, and they’re fully aware he has no survival instincts whatsoever, so when he does end up leaving they send a ravager to keep him (and his friends, they suppose) safe -@/haworthiaace

- so like... hear me out ok what if the reason the whole world is corrupting and weird and why a lot of people are like slowly turning into mobs is because maybe this is the way the game and the mobs are turning on the hermits for like making really inhumane farms or something like that and the mobs somehow messed with the code of the world to get revenge - anonymous

- Scattered AU!! Biffa spawned very concerned and on a beach. Where is he? How did he get here? Is he alone? Well one of his questions was answered quickly as he heard a constant buzzing sound come from his communicator, upon opening it he saw probably millions of death messages. He quickly realised this was probably supposed to be a new season of hermitcraft, but he didn't really have time to think about it, night was quickly approaching and he could already see drowned swimming towards him. - Anonymous

- How many times did X die to that Warden? Maybe he develops something to counteract the Warden’s sensors, or that his heartbeat slowed down to the point that his suit can barely pick it up (therefor making it harder for the Warden to track Xisuma down). -🦊

- Etho tried his best to fight the system and not get any new features from all his deaths. But, the game has its ways. Slowly, after every death he has, the less alive he comes back. (Undead!Etho, could be ghost, zombie variant, or skeleton variant) -@/harley-the-pancake

- Other hybrid characteristics Hypno gets of the moonbloom: His ears turn into golden cows ones, the horns grow in, he gets a tail, and little flowers grow though his hair and wrap around his horns. He can also grow flowers around him as long as he has dirt, but thankfully they dont do anything beyond smelling a lot stronger and smelling very nice (and maybe a bit of evoking certain reactions, but nothing beyond what normal flowers can do, ie lavender being calming, just a bit more intense) - anonymous

- Beetlejhost ended up in the world along with the hermits, spawning as if summoned: in the middle of a circle of beehives. His spawn is in the birch forest near the s8 spawn, and his presence spooks anyone who stumbles across him. He blends in concerningly well with the black and white of the forest. Beef feels like hes being watched whenever he goes in the birch forest to get supplies, but joe never notices a thing. He teases the hybrids about their changes, leading him to get swiftly decked- - @/therainofsweetmelody

- beetlejhost spawns in a circle of beehives in the birch forest near spawn. he thinks he's invis, in reality it's just his stripes making him blend into the birch trees. he can't leave the circle of bees, ah how wonderful it is to bee bee-tlejhost - @/justme123abz

- Beetlejhost doesn't mean to be mean, really, he just has really, really bad timing. This includes seeing a pollen-stained Hypno and, with his gravelly voice, immediately say "Woah! Someone had some fun in the sun! Tell me, did you spend a week rolling in dandilions or do you just like the color yellow?" This does not go over well - Anonymous

- Speaking of hybrids, Xisuma spawned in a Wardens den right? Well unlike the other hybrids, Xisuma has been changing too but its been slow. Every time he spawned back in that place, on the warped ground, he's changed. He doenst notice the dark starts to seem less dark, until noises get louder, until he's more sentive to it then he noticed, he gets stronger and breaking though the stone with his bare hands seems a bit easier, its not until he finds Jevin and he points out the glowing horns (1)peaking from his temples when his hair is pulled back hastily that he realizes that something has gone horribly wrong with him. Thankfully Jevin helps ground him before he can freak out, so he shelves it for later, once they're out of this cave. The warden that once was down by his spawn is no longer there btw, disappeared. The horns grow slowly, and soon glowing vein like markings appear as well. (2) - Anonymous

- Okay, Xisuma, we established he spawned in the deep dark, right? As time goes on he adapts to the dark. The skulk sensors grow on him. However as time goes on, they not only grow on him, but become a part of him. His footsteps quiet to near silence, and he can feel sounds. He certainly isn't how he was when he entered, at first glance he might even be mistaken for a warden. - Anonymous

- Tango is the only hermit other than Mumbo Daisy kind of likes. Tango thinks Daisy is absolutely adorable, and Daisy does like the positive attention(and the treats). - Anonymous

- When tango meets mumbo’s pet ravager he loses his mind, he tried so hard to get the decked out ravagers to like him and then mumbo just waltzes in riding on one of the things! He ends up hanging around her a lot and eventually forms some sort of relationship, although not as close as he would like (he also gets a little more sympathetic once he sees the effects the evokers had on mumbo, he figures the guy earned a pet ravager) - @/haworthiaace

(Hermits now at the spawn haven, in order of arrival: Joe, Beef, Hypno, Scar, Bdubs, TFC, Mumbo, Iskall, Tango, Impulse, Zedaph. XB is en route, Wels and Hels are traveling through Hels to get there, Ren, Doc, and Grian are attempting to get there but their success has been limited so far)

- Scattered!AU: Idea that Ex is the ONLY one that knows what is going on and how to fix it perhaps (maybe 'cause of having been banished to the void for so long)? That's why he's trying to find X. - Anonymous

- Admins log: day 1006: Me and Jevin finally see sunlight, and I've managed to get the clock function on my helmet working, finally. As we're on our way to the surface, I only hope that I can find someone or something to help guide us to where we need to go, but unfortunately I've lost all signal to chat, and I think we're next to a woodland mansion. I think I've derped up this time.

- Dear Xisuma, if you see this message then the log is working, also fixed the clock in your helmet it's been 50 days, not 1005. I was about to leave with Iskall when I noticed you and Jevin outside with a few, erm, "buddies" of mine you two where passed out and I managed to stop them from killing you with Daisy, my pet ravenger. I'll explain everything later and spawns in the village are working, finally. I recommend not moving much and work on the data packs for a bit before you do anything elseExplanation log to Xisuma part 2: Sorry if the last one got cut off abruptly, apparently there's a limit to these messages. Any way please take care of yourself. Sincerely, your pal Mumbo Jumbo

- Admins log, day 51: I first want to say thank you Mumbo for bringing me up to speed and explaining why and how me and Jevin are here, next I want to say that these logs may slow down for a bit, I'll be working on some maintenance for some packs. I still don't know why this is happening, I now hope this is a wicked nightmare and not our reality. Hang on I see something over there it looks like, wait let me ju- Voice logs are off for the moment.

- all one anon

- mooblooms spread the flowers that enraptured hypno. now that hypno is a moobloom hybrid, he can make people "hypnotizd"! he doesnt like to, but if the spawn ever gets attacked, the hermits are winning easily. - anonymous

- I like to think that at some point when there's a significant number of healthy hermits at 0,0 they start group searches to find the rest of hermits - anonymous

- After awhile, if they can't change the spawn of everyone, they begin securing all the spawn points to everyone, so if their bed is ever destroyed in the future, they won't end up in a death loop again. They secure the death loop spawn points first. - @/ciaravixen

- For undead Etho: I know that ghasts aren't technically undead mobs, but they're basically ghosts and that's what I feel etho is becoming?He's leaving his mortality behind bit by bit as he ceases to care about death and starts to use it as a tool instead.One day he'll respawn without a body at all - @/draconic-dreams

- This is just a thought. Sand cant be good for Iskall's mechanical parts, and its not like he has anything to fix it. Does he have to wait to find doc to be able to have hope of fixing himself? - anonymous

- Jellie had spawned in the village that cub and xb had come across, so when xb heads to 0,0 he takes her with him (she'd be safer in the overworld than in the end, after all). Its quite a long journey, and she makes for good company. -@/supertiny-tins

- Grian, Doc, and Ren fianlly start heading out to 0,0. Its a long journey, they decide in the end to leave their beds behind at the cabin in case any of them die so none of them end back at their orginal spawns. they would of just made new beds every time but the lack of suplies and resources near by has been low oddly enough. Doc manages to push aside most of his fears to help Grian and Ren, who are weaker, but he keeps his distance whenever he can. They make many hastily built huts as they go 1most nights are spent sleeping on hard ground, later straight up blocks of wool they find but not beds, just wool is better then ground, and it doesn't do the weaker hermits any favors but it works. There are many close calls, but they manage to avoid death, mostly due to Doc. Along the way they start to find signs of other players, coble in places it shouldn't, a rare torch, half mined trees, but no hermits. They still have a way to go, but they're getting closer to the others and safety. 2 - anonymous

- Etho once found himself spawning in the middle of an ocean with nothing and no one in sight except of course... A faint trail of lights dancing beneath the waves... Pulsing and glimmering, almost in a rhythm, something so fascinating, so... So... He was meant to be doing something...? It was... Important... At least... It might have been... It's all.. Kinda hazy... It couldn't have been more important than the lights, nothing was more important than the lights... They were so beautiful... He could watch them all day... Etho never noticed how he slipped beneath the waves, nor how the glow squid's glittering eyes had turned upon him, coiling a tentacle around his waist as it dragged its prey deep into the depths, his eyes hazed with green, he never even noticed his lungs burning for air.And he never remembered drowning after he respawned. - anonymous

- Impulse actually punches through the Nether roof so they can traverse more safely to coordinates given to them by Etho. They leave trails of blocks so they can make their way back, of course. - @/rayveewrites

(Evil X is now hiding out in a cave near spawn)

- Shattered!AU: I see everyone's Warden!Xisuma heacannons and I give you Axolotl!Xisuma. Think about it he's been hanging around with them and Jevin in the lush caves so maybe he's becoming more like them. (Frills, a more pink-ish tint to his skin, the ability to breathe underwater, etc.) :D (Is this because the thought of him having Warden traits is terrifying to me? Maybe. Is it because I think he deserves to become something not scary after his whole ordeal in the Deep Dark? Yes.) - anonymous

- Ever since getting out of the loop, Impulse has had a horrible inner conflict between his guardian side being instinctually drawn to the water, and his human brain being deeply terrified of ever being submerged again. - @/asexualbert

- Because I absolutely adore Daisy, more headcannons for Daisy.Daisy will occasionally just pick Mumbo up gently with her horns when she thinks she isn't getting enough attention. Daisy has a bell collar, because she kept scaring hermits by following Mumbo silently. Daisy is more okay with Iskall than most other hermits, though still doesn't really like him. - anonymous

- Though I'm a sucker for angst, what if Impulse was saved by a dolphin pod or something instead of transforming into a hybrid (or after transforming if Guardian!Impulse is cannon). :3 I can picture dolphins don't take kindly to the Guardian Mobs, might even find them as prey if anything since they're fish. (Guardian!Impulse wouldn't count since they're smart enough creatures to tell the difference.) - anonymous

- Prob a bit early for epilogue stuff but I like to think that, once all the glitches are fixed, that those that became hybrids and would prefer to be back to normal get changed back. - anonymous

(Shade note: Personally, I'm a sucker for stories where the characters adjust and learn to live with the unexpected changes to themselves rather than having them magically fixed, but this option is certainly still here for the people who find it appealing)

- For the scattered au, after the numerous frozen deaths Grian's gone through he starts hearing voices from the snow, even from within Ren's cabin. A snow golem forms after a wandering trader drops a pumpkin and watches from outside the cabin, deciding to guard the place after taking a liking to Grian and Ren. - anonymous

- When Etho became fully ghost, it hit hard. BeetleJhost saw this, and after a while decided to teach him how to show his form and speak. It takes a lot out of him, but it’s worth it. His friends deserve that closure. (Listen, I was expecting angst, I just wasn’t expecting that much angst.) - @/harley-the-pancake

- Mod Shade, I want you to know that angsting ghost!Etho that hard was entirely on you. I was picturing him clipping through blocks and dropping items at inconvenient points, not fading out of existence entirely. - @/draconic-dreams

- Possible explanation for everything going on in Scattered:Players were never supposed to be so powerful; in the natural state of Minecraft they're just another mob, albiet one that can craft and use any tool.But the Players weren't satisfied with that. Everyone from the admin of the smallest server to the mythological ‘dev team’ has been imposing little changes on the world since its inception, slowly tweaking it into a better environment for Player-kind.A single spawn at the world's centre. The ability of Players to chat from one end of the world to another -- even across different worlds. Even natural regeneration, an ability unique to the rarest and most powerful of mobs. As time marched on, Players not only unlocked these things but began to take them for granted, drawing far away from the behaviour of normal mobs. This became normal. Players continued to create datapacks and run commands that tweaked the very nature of the world. -@/draconic-dreams

(Shade note: Perhaps it was just a random glitch, one fundamental line of code removed to shift the balance of power. Or maybe it was orchestrated, but by who and for what purpose? Either way, it will take the Hermits a while to realize this, and even longer to fix it...if they can at all.)

- Jessasin spawned in a mesa biome, of course he's confused on how he got there and why he's in this random vanilla world and not his usual modded world, but both questions got pushed aside when the death messeges arrive. He exploared the area gathering as much recourses as he can and goes off too find someone, anyone really. - @/ghan-does-things

- hello! I discovered the scattered au literally yesterday so sorry if this is something that has already been gone over but I had an idea about bdubs, what if his constant exposure to the void and surviving on nothing but chorus fruit for who knows how long made him slightly enderman-y? 1/2 (sorry, couldn't fit the whole thing in one ask)Like nothing obvious at first, but making eye contact makes him agitated and snappy, touching water makes his skin tingle and if you look at him in the dark his eyes seem to have a very faint pink/purple glow about them? Maybe the other hermits swear he's taller than he was the last time they saw him? And the tips of his fingers are blackened, he assumes due to frostbite, but it seems to gradually be making it's way further up his hands? again sorry if this has been gone over already 2/2 - @/plantichu

- Okay so after Welsknight and Helsknight manage to get past the crazy vault door in Hels, not sure how but it probably involved a lot of cussing on Hels part and Wels saying that he never wanted to look at redstone ever again. The portal takes them to the overworld near Xisuma and Jevin. - anonymous

- (scattered au) The first set of non hermits to join this corrupt world are two strangers that apparently came from infinity's grasp. The good news they both spawned at spawn, bad news the brought the tnt duper flying machines, good news that everyone was able to calm them both down. Now the fun begins. Tldr Illmango and Methodz finally get out of the infinity portal. - anonymous

- Loving the Scattered AU. Late to the party, but was looking at the wider MC community reaction to the Hermits vanishing. Once it's clear something bad's happened, would the Legacy crew and whoever else (former Evo squad members like Martyn and Jimmy as well, if they notice Grian go dark) take steps to find out what happened? Would they go to the MCC server (it's kind of a nexus between worlds) & get Noxcrew to try "pinging" the HC server? Would X & other admins see it but be unable to respond? - @/wixelt

- I dont know if anyone has mentioned it but uhhhh, guardian xb? he was a guardian hybrid before everyone got scattered like Ren was already a wolf/dog hybrid. iirc xb spawned in a desert which would be a very interesting place for a guardian hybrid to spawn - anonymous

- Etho has been so, so desperate to avoid dying the same way twice, to stay himself. He hasn't drowned that many times, he thinks. Surely, surely he's starved more often? There's a strange feeling of deja vu hanging over him when he respawns in the ocean, though he can never understand why. Each time the squid finds him, he drowns a little slower, and each time, he glows a little stronger.And he just can't understand, almost refuses to, as he treks from biome to biome, where the small green bumps that line his arms and face came from, how his fingertips seem to almost glow when he scoops a handful of water, how long he finds himself simply staring… at the moon, at sea lanterns, at torches, at lights… He would die a different way every time. He had to. He had to stay Etho. He would not become anything else. - Anonymous

- When Mumbo comes riding into camp on Daisy, it’s easy to see Impulse is not happy about the ravager being there. That’s expected, it’s not exactly everyone’s favorite mob to see around a safe haven. But when Mumbo and Impulse make eye contact, the evoker can’t help but make a simple warding gesture his friends at the mansion taught him- it’s a reflex move. Days later, Mumbo still isn’t sure if Impulse flinched because of Daisy’s sudden growl or his ward. - @/fluffy-papaya

- (From the Discord) What happened to the world: For years, seeds and the land they built had been carefully curated by those known as players, in an effort to make it both easier and more interesting for themselves. But the land doesnt want to be controlled. Their glitched, broken world is a result of the world itself rioting against their presence. Coordinates aren't visible with the debug screen, their coms only serve the world, to tell the players what it knows. Compasses spin wildly in the overworld, for there is no "world spawn" (though coordinates are visible with one in hand. Small mercies are still given). The world resists any further changes by the simple fact it refuses to accept what a hermit communicates. Maybe it's fixable, but maybe... maybe it runs deeper than just their world. (The Legates caused a lot of damage with all those withers, after all.) - @/basaltdragon

- While Iskall is in the desert, he ends up dying quite a few times, enough to adapt, he becomes like a stray, so now, if we have skeleton Etho, we have 3 undead hermits - anonymous

- When everyone is finally gathered and they manage to come together to use all their skills, new and old, the hermits use it to flee back to Season 7. They stay there for months, mostly to heal and adjust to what happened to them. (Trauma isn't easy) Those who have friends or family off server get invited to visit, but the hermits don't leave, they nearly lost each other and they aren't willing to risk it again right now. They'll make a new season 8 at some point, the hermits are too (1/3)restless and too ingrained in their ways to completely disregard how they've always done things, but that will come when they feel better, safer, more put together, when they can finally stop sleeping in a big pile becuase they're afraid the others will disappear. They never go back to that old glitched world, the idea makes them sick, and X starts the new practice of sending in the 'Cam' and/or 'alt' accounts in first to check out the world and set up commands and plugins remotely first. (2/3) What happened before will never, ever happen again he swears it. Next time they might not be so lucky after all [if you can call them all being traumatized, many of them dying over and over again, some being permanently altered, and barely escaping lucky] (also feel free to save these asks for near the end of the au!) (3/3) - anonymous (Shade note: I personally like the idea of them fixing and learning to live in the glitched-out world, but this is another alternate ending!)

- (From the Discord) What happened to the world: Alternatively, what happened is exclusive to their world. (I don't have Dramatic Storytelling for this one, sorry) EX has ADHD to the max, and everything he does is a desperate attempt to get Noticed, to get looked up to and listened to. He's known it was "wrong" for a while, hence why he took X's name and added "Evil", but he never seriously wanted them to hurt. Just to listen to him. He'd meant to come in and fix it all and finally be a hero. He didn't realize, either through haste or inexperience, that he too would be at the mercy of what he'd done.Maybe he does, eventually, make it to where the hermits have gathered. But does he really want to admit everything? (RSD had burned him before, and if there ever was something to place the blame on his head...) - @/basaltdragon

- lasting effects of deaths

- a large amount of assorted ideas

- The bell they put on Daisy was originally of the type that are put on cats, but Grian ended up switching it out with a cowbell because he hated the sound - anonymous

- False, Keralis, Cleo, and Stress make it to spawn, bedraggled and exhausted. Out of all the Hermits, they are some of the last to arrive. Along the way, they’ve encountered trials innumerable that have left them beaten and bruised, but after months of travel, they’ve finally made it.Shortly after leaving the Moobloom field, they came upon an abandoned cart in the middle of a desolate village. With some of the redstone they had found and whatever magic they managed to scrape up, they turned it into a sort of vehicle that allowed them to travel much faster. It had a habit of breaking every six seconds or so, but nothing they couldn’t fix. For the most part. A few accidental combustions aside, they crossed the server in record time.Once at spawn, False has to be forcibly restrained from immediately starting guard duty, and several of the Hermits have to physically wrestle her into a bed in order for her to get some rest. Stress starts up a potion factory the next day, and also starts decorating the spawn with the flowers she’s collected during their travels. Keralis helps out wherever he’s needed, but in his downtime, he constructs an elaborate warren of tastefully decorated, industrial tunnels under the spawn, just in case they might help. Cleo mostly just stays in bed, creating elaborate dioramas and mourning the loss of her zombie side. She’ll get better, but it’ll take some time. And that’s ok with the rest of them. - @/topazastral

- When Doc, Grian, and Ren finally make it to 0,0 there is no fanfare, no dramtic entrance, no revulation. They were travling and suddnly, there was a base, a hermitcraft base, and they could see people. Grian clambers to feet shakily from the shed, nearly falling but Doc and Ren catch him and toghther they help him walk foward and call out to their friends. They are safe now, they're here- Is that mumbo on a ravager what the hell? Wait thats Impluse? Seems like Grian wasnt the only one changed. - anonymous

- Jellie reacting to vex!scar headcanons -she recognises him instantly. The moment she and xb arrive at spawn she darts straight towards him. Of course, she cant figure out why he looks different, but regardless, thats her owner and she demands pets!!!-sometimes she will jump up and try to pounce on his vex wings, because shiny moving thing! Scar picked up on this very quickly and will move out of the way before she gets the chance (vex wings are rather delicate and a pain to get fixed)-whe she's bored, she will always go to mumbo and daisy for attention first. This makes scar rather jealous and she knows that damn well-Scar will sometimes pick her up and fly her around not too far from spawn for a few minutes. Nothing she isnt used to, as he flys with the elytra all the time, but something about flying with vex magic just feels... different. And fun! - anonymous

- Contrary to the enderman bdubs, ender dragon bdubs. His eyes aren't the normal brown, and are instead a bright magenta, he also now has ashen gray horns. - Anonymous

- Scattered AU: The intended world "theme" Xisuma had set up for Season 8 was Large Biomes. This was before anyone knew something was going to go wrong, of course, but it's had a horrible lasting effect in the glitched world. Not everywhere has generated as "large", so when Hermits are travelling they'll sometimes find normal sized biomes, and other times they'll find one biomes that stretches an abnormal distance in all directions. Grian and Doc's mountain range is one of these large biomes. - @/wixelt

- For the scattered au, the snow golem follows Grian and Ren (and Doc) to the spawn haven, for a few days the hermits are wondering what's leaving behind snow trails and zombie flesh, so they decide to have a night watch around this area. Ren volunteered and waited, half-asleep he nearly nearly gets hit with a arrow when he hears the sound of a skeleton getting hurt. He sees the snow golem and uses his sword to kill the skeleton. The snow golem tries to flee but Ren realizes and stops it (1/2)He welcomes the snow golem and introduces it to Grian and Doc, (where the snow golem warns him that it is keeping its eyes on him in its own language). Spooked, Grian tells them that he can understand it, and the golem tells him that he's been following them since their time at the mountain. They decide to give it the name Catmint and it helps guard the hermit's base at night (while giving a stern look at Doc every now and then.(2/2) - anonymous

- (Scattered au)Seeing as we now have 3 different variations of Etho, I raise you: all 3 at once. It turns out Etho was not in fact human, instead a shapeshifter who didn't know that he was, the deaths simply sped up the process, whereas before, while he would change slightly, it was never fast enough to be noticeable - Anonymous

- I had this idea some time ago actually but I thought it was silly but now that the au in ending might as well say it. It doesn't make much sense now with all the new development srry. What if one day Mumbo was callibrating his comunication monstrosity, and suddenly his communicator had signal. He called and called but whoever was a the other side didn't pick up, until they did and Mumbo was overjoyed, but the happiness died down when he could only hear chocked sobs and sharp breathing and (1)teeth chattering. Suddenly a voice whispered, little and fragile "h-h-he-lp". Mumbo knew that voice too well. Before he could even open his mouth to let his best friend he was coming for him, he'd be okay, anything, the breathing stopped. The call was still going, but no one was at the other side anymore, Mumbo hung up with tears in his eyes, and he swore he'd find him and he'd help him. (2) - anonymous

- Scattered AU: While there's still time for them: Mumbo was the furthest Hermit out in the Overworld, & didn't set off for over a year, yet wasn't last to 0,0 (with Iskall) by any stretch. More than half the Hermits seemed to arrive after him. This can be partly attributed to Daisy making good time, but it makes you wonder how many trials & tribulations impeded False, Stress, Cleo and Keralis along the way? How much Ren, Doc & Grian were slowed by Grian's condition? What took xB or Biffa so long? - @/wixelt

- Once everyone finds each other, at the world spawn, after the initial shock, and fixing of the world of course, the hermits all decide to settle much closer to each other. They were separated for quite a while, so it makes sense why they'd decide to keep close. Some groups also make shared bases. - anonymous

- I sort of want grian to be a bit more inhuman so how about grian’s skin on his arms, legs and most of his face permanently blackened by the severe frostbite and the rest of his skin has taken on a bluish tinge, his hair is no longer the Gold it was before but almost snow white with a tinge of dark and light blue, his ears and tail are snow white with what appears to be frost and ice growing on them (1/2)(2/2) grian can not cry because the tears will immediately turned to ice, he can’t swim because if his body touches the water the water will freeze over, his skin is cold to the touch and whatever he moves his body it will make a cracking sounds like breaking glass or smashing ice, no matter how warm it is he can always see his breath... i’m trying to think of more but I’m coming up blank so that’s it hope you like it. - anonymous

- bc i cant stand when cleo is unhappy: the moment she and joe reunite, joe realizes how horrible it is for her to have her body messed with against her will. and as an admin, he can modify her code to put her back to how she was in previous seasons (aka not totally rabid but still undead) - anonymous

- Admins log final day: I'm glad we'll all be able to wake up from this nightmare, and we're able to get an exit portal going thanks to Mango and Methodz having a backup of the key to open the infinity portal's power, we should be able to not only go back in time, but destroy this broken timeline. Were all grateful for them, and I did invite them both to help us incace this happens again. This will be the last day in this timeline, if you somehow found this helmet with these logs, thank you. :-) - anonymous

- Grian, Doc, and Ren find it hard to stay away from each other too long, especially Doc and Ren becuase they've been taking care of Grian for such a long time so they find themselves kinda hovering over him and Grian finds himself seeking them out even when he's with other hermits. The other groups, who've been toghther for awhile, do it too probs - anonymous

- Soon as Grian and Mumbo see each other, they launch themselves at the other and hold on for a long, long time. Iskall join in soon as he wanders by and they talk for hours about what happened, looking over Grian's new fox parts and the blue marks on his hands, Mumbo gray stained hands and magic, and just Iskalls overall experience. Also Grian's little fox buddy absolutely loves Daisy and vice versa. Its not uncommon to see the small fox riding on the ravager's back while Daisy scares people. - Anonymous

- I know I'm a bit out of loop w scattered au & is probably getting things wrong but consider this, when Mumbo accidentally summoned Scar, leaving Bdubs alone, Bdubs freaked out. The very person that meant rescue & hope for him back in the end is now gone, he felt like he's back into the void again and he thought Scar abandoned him because he's too weak & is a burden to Scar. (Yes I am currently drowning in Scardubs angst) - @/anthosaidsmth

- The glitches in the world didn't only happen to the Hermits, it happened to all worlds created in 1.17. The cause remains unknown, though it is believed that something or even someone corrupted/changed the code (what/who is up to imagination. In the case of the latter, so is the motive). My idea, we've already confirmed that Watchers are arrogant jerks so perhaps they couldn't stand the fact that players learned to do things against the rules that they put in place, and did this out of spite. - anonymous

- A bit late but I see all the Fox!Grian headcannons so what if Grian spawned in a jungle and slowly became a parrot hybrid instead? How idk, maybe resorting to eating seeds to prevent himself from starvation because there is no animals in this jungle.

- Here's a thought: The Hels!Hermits were also effected by whatever caused the scattering. They may all hate or annoy each other, but not having each other around to pick on isn't very fun (neither are death loops). Perhaps some of them gain humility over this or learn to be at least a bit nicer to each other and their counterparts. (or some of them find sadistic amusement in their counterpart's miseries) - anonymous

- Finally, once everyone has made it safely to spawn and the problems with the world have been resolved, the season begins. Some of the Hermits may have changed (more than just physically) but over time, they adapt and recover. Grian eventually starts yet ANOTHER war, Tango gets to build DO 2.0 (X is terrified at the fact wardens are involved), and Cleo becomes a coach on 'how to be a mob hybrid' (unless all new hybrids get returned to how they were before by admin powers or just being players). - anonymous

- With all the glitches fixed and all the hermits starting to get back to their normal (Well as normal as it can be after all of these), I wonder if Scar is still a vex. All the hermits just adapted to their situations, but Scar is different, he made a deal with the Vex. - @/anthosaidsmth

- It takes all of the hermits that changed a while to get used to the changes, but eventually they do, mostly through help and support from the other hermits - anonymous

- I had a wee idea and it's a little silly but I like hurt/comfort so maybe after all the scattered au events have passed and the hermits are all together living safely, every winter some hermits invite Grian to their bases to take care of him since the snow and the cold are very bad for him. Sometimes he gets fevers but most of the time he just needs a warm blanket and someone to distract him from the snow. This is also making me wonder if Grian could develop chinophobia (fear of the snow). - Anonymous

- conclusion

Art:

- An Evoker Mumbo

- Evoker Mumbo with Daisy

- Evoker Mumbo summoning Scar

- a Guardian Impulse

- assorted doodles here and here

- A two-part Impulse comic

Writing:

- some Etho lore come back to haunt him (pt 1)

- Cleo sharing mob-hybrid tips with Impulse

- Executioner

- Fish out of water

- Homesick

- Thalassophobia

- The General's Wager (pt 2)

- The Undertow

- Saviors

- Bdubs falling

- For lack of blue shiny rocks (pt 3)

- conclusion (pt 4)

- EX in the Deep Dark

- this road I'm on's gonna turn to sand

- Snapshots

- a multi-chapter Scattered interpretation written just before the real season 8, complete with some outside lore and crossover

- Scattered Across The Map (series of parallel multi-chapter fics)

- One Hundred Thousand Worlds Away

[anendoandfriendo]

[Please do not, like, actually add onto this, this is more of a vent.]

Ughh something we've thought about on and off for a few months by now is how that people in traumatized communities seem to have, like, three different definitions of "without trauma":

Has no trauma whatsoever and is entirely serious about X.

Has no trauma whatsoever and is not serious about X.

Has trauma, but sees it as something that only loosely affects X/is more correlated to X/trauma can definitely flavor X, but there may be or are exceptions to X being a trauma thing.

Has trauma, but because Xa and Xb are only similar on the surface and Xa is described as originating from a and not b, all spaces between a and b should be segregated and the experiences are always different.

And it is bull-fucking-shit. #4 sucks to us for what we feel are obvious reasons: foks are usually going to discriminate about X in general...they aren't gonna care about the a or b in regards to oppression, and there is always value in talking with adjacent communities, even if you do not relate to everything.

#2 is just...weird, because while #2 is definitely harmful we don't see it nearly as often as people describe #2 to happen. Also, lots of people say #2 to mean "does not do X to my expectations" which makes us point back to #4 regarding Xa versus Xb.

#1 could be misinformed, but it's also just as likely that #4 sucking applies tp #1 as well ioo.

So, like, if it isn't clear we generally think #3 is the best way to think about X, and if it wasn't clear, X is plurality as it relates to DID and OSDD.

Please be on the same fucking page if you are going to talk about trauma, trauma-influenced disabilities, and trauma-formed disabilities. If we're talking about #3 and you're talking about #1 we might be able to have a good faith discussion, but if you're talking about #4 to our #3 then — with exceptions — we're probably just wasting our time.

And if you're talking about #2 and you are entirely serious about #2 rather than using it as a blunt force weapon to force other systems to conform to your standards, that's an entirely different discussion, because that's a discussion about lying, medical resources, and how medical resources are impacted by lying. We aren't as equipped to handle that, because we are #3 and have never had to use those resources. We can say we do generally think people who are lying still need some kind of help, although we aren't sure about the details of what type of help because, again, not a system who's had to deal with that, and it's the folks who have who probably know better.

Maybe we're wrong, but this is our personal observation. And it's frustrating. We get immediately suspicious of anyone who says they're trying to have an actual discussion, but like, if we assume everyone is immediately in bad faith we feel like that's just as horrible. And while we don't post a whole lotta actual discourse on anything ourselves, we know we reblog stuff we LIKE, discourse or not, and we see mutuals who hear a lot of #2 and #4, so like. 🥺😭 We just want to cry sometimes like what the f*ck.

[Please do not, like, actually add onto this, this is more of a vent.]

[justletmeplayminecraft]

Hermitcraft Great British Bake Off AU

(Or the Great British Baking Show outside the UK)

With the start of a new series, I thought I'd compile this AU I came up with a while ago. Big shout out to @skywillsometimeswrite who helped me brainstorm nearly all of this (and accidentally got into the series sorry. Time to get emotional over bakers again.) 

It's Great British Bake Off, where the hermits take the place of the contestants, judges and some of the crew (with the recap boys as the hosts!) It follows the structure of the show, but to add maximum fluffiness, nobody leaves and the show works on a point system instead. The loser of each week does the washing up. (Not that the winner matters, this is all about the shenanigans.) Further explanations and what role each hermit fills with a short bio is under the cut!

The recording structure follows the usual routine. It takes place over several weeks, with the recording happening at the weekend. They stay at a hotel over the weekend. On the Saturday they record the Signature Challenge and the Technical. On the Sunday they film the Showstopper. Each week is themed, with the challenges fitting into that theme. The themes are often based around a certain kind of baking (pastry, bread, chocolate) but sometimes around time periods, places, or diets. I recommend googling or watching an episode of the show but a brief explanation of the challenges:

The Signature Challenge: They're given a certain thing (cake, pastry, biscuit, etc) to create. They've been able to practice at home. This is the opportunity to show personality and a home-cooked, rustic style with tried and tested bakes.

The Technical: The Judges take turns each week to set a recipe for an often uncommon bake. The recipe is bare-bones and the bakers have to use their intuition and knowledge about baking to create what's intended. This round is unpractised, and judged blind, with the judges outside the tent for the duration. The aim is to perfectly replicate the recipe given and that's how they're judged.

The Showstopper: A chance to bring out the big guns! They're often given a theme and a type of bake and then the contestants can go wild. The aim is to create something of professional quality, that makes the judges go 'wow' and still tastes good. Also practiced over the week, though sometimes less due to the size of the bakes.

Now onto the hermits:

The Judges are TFC and Biffa. TFC is the friendlier of the two. He does his best to find positives in bakes, although he enjoys making jokes about things that go wrong. Most of the contestants come to think of him as a grandad. Biffa gives more thorough criticism, but it helps the contestants improve a lot and is tailored towards the advice they need. They enjoy talking to the contestants about their bakes and lives outside the tent, both on and off camera. They've both had long careers in the industry.

The Hosts are our recap boys, Pixelriffs and Zloy. They're a dynamic duo in front of the camera, riffing off each other and the contestants naturally. They have a good balance of improvisation and planned skits. Zloy will doodle scenes from the tent during their downtime.

In alphabetical order, the Contestants:

1. Beef: Works as a butcher. It's often joked about, and not helped by him spilling red food colouring on his apron early in the series. He's incredibly good at piping and often creates artworks on top of his bakes for decoration. Absolutely smashes any biscuit decoration.

2. Cleo: Works as a teacher. Ironically, has to be censored at least once an episode and continuously hopes none of her students watch. It's hard to tell what she's doing until the last minute when she pulls it all together. She enjoys making little figures from fondant or rice crispy marshmallow mix.

3. Cub: Runs a sports equipment company. He likes coming up with creative solutions to the challenges and surprises the others by how focused he can become once in the zone. He has a deadpan sense of humour and a willingness to commit to bits. Often banters with Scar.

4. Etho: His job seems to change every time he mentions it. It never fails to catch the others off guard. He rarely explains his bakes, and his ability to mix flavours that shouldn't work but somehow do is infuriating. Sometimes, as he waits for things to bake, he uses the free time to play music on the baking equipment.

5. False: Works as a bodyguard. She says the details of her job are classified and never brings it up again. Nobody is sure if she's joking, but she's built. She's a very precise builder, with perfectionist tendencies that can sometimes come back to bite her if she focuses on them too much. She jumps between different themes with ease when decorating.

6. Grian: Works as an architect. He's fond of going big with his bakes, trying to push the limits of what's possible. However, he often gives himself too much to do, and ends up having to rush, disguise unfinished parts or the other contestants help him finish. He's bubbly in front of the camera and enjoys the occasional prank.

7. Impulse: Works as an electrical engineer. Also anxiety central. He's a very technical baker who's brilliant at following recipes. However, he will restart a bake if very minor things go wrong, which often leaves him pressed for time. Despite this, he's one of the most likely people to jump in and help someone who's struggling.

8. Keralis: Owns a bookstore. He loves decorating and his bakes are always some of the prettiest in the tent. Although he has a sleek, modern style, he can branch out when needed. He makes up his own pronunciation for ingredients, bakes and the other people in the tent. Gradually, everyone else starts using them too.

9. Scar: Works as a landscaper. Skilled at detailing and has out of the box thinking for his designs. Likes creating vehicles. However, sometimes he finds himself hiding bad baking with his decoration. His name proves accurate when half of his arm ends up bandaged in the first episode. Becomes good friends with Bdubs because of this.

10. Stress: Works as a personal trainer. Her bakes are always bright and colourful. It isn't a Stress bake if it doesn't make you smile. She's fairly equal on her decorating and her baking and enjoys a cartoonish style. A delight to have in the tent, loves helping other contestants and cheers them up if something doesn't go to plan.

11. xB: Medical researcher. His bakes are always creative, with fun stories behind them, if a bit dark. He's soft-spoken and doesn't raise his voice. He never quite swears but always comes close. The others can tell something's gone wrong when they hear a quiet 'dangit' or 'son of a-' and somebody jumps to find out what's happened.

12. Xisuma: Works as bee-keeper. He loves big shapes and patterns in his bakes. Often keeps things healthy(ish). He's primarily a technical baker and researches and practices his bakes extensively. However, he has a tendency to panic and makes silly mistakes (salt instead of sugar, forget to turn on the oven, etc.) 

The Crew Members:

Camera Crew:

Mumbo: Sometimes mistaken for being on a work placement/internship. He enjoys his work and takes a lot of the detail shots of the bakes. Although he can keep to himself, Iskall often brings him out of his shell and encourages him to chat with the contestants.

Ren: He's an incredibly chill presence to be around. He'll do his best to chat with contestants in-between filming and try to calm them down or hype them up. Usually he films stressful sequences with a reassuring smile and kind words. He enjoys singing in their downtime.

Zed: Very bouncy. He enjoys rushing around the tent to get over the shoulder shots or focus on the detail. He's good friends with Tango, and maybe he occasionally worries he’s ‘broken’ something to get the chance to talk to him on set. 

Sound:

Wels: He's calm and organised. He tests everybody's microphones are working and manages audio levels. He's good at handling distractions, but if they manage to catch him off-set they find he has a fun sense of humour and can give genuinely good advice. Enjoys singing to test the microphones when he thinks nobody's listening.

Wardrobe:

Iskall: Most of his work is done off-set, and he becomes good friends with the contestants, discussing their plans for bakes and chatting. He'll dart onto set to touch up make up when the cameras are off, offering words of encouragement as he does. Though it’s a bit concerning when he calls people’s bakes ‘of doom’.

On-site Medic:

Bdubs: Bdubs is a familiar sight with the accident prone contestants. He's always there with calm words and enthusiasm, talking the contestant down from their worry about their injury, helping them to relax. Despite his silliness, it's obvious he takes his job seriously. The contestants are glad to have him.

Set Manager:

Jevin: A bit chaotic, but he helps make sure things are set for filming. He enjoys getting the ingredients ready for the day and working out what they'll need. He also enjoys bullying Hypno. They've worked together a few times now. He enjoys a good joke when he gets the chance.

Hypno: Fairly relaxed, but he can appreciate a good joke and he appreciates Jevin. He helps organise ingredients and makes sure that things run smoothly on set. Very precise with his work, he doesn't cut corners and makes sure everyone has what they need, when they need it. A good person for the contestants to talk to.

Researcher:

Joe: He takes great pride in searching recipes, trying new things and adding them to his repertoire. Sure he might use a few too many words, but he's good at his job. He's not often on set, working mostly with Jevin and Hypno behind the scenes. But he might step in as tech if he's needed. A bit of a cryptid to the contestants.

Technicians:

Tango: A good friend of Zed. Even though he has some... Less than professional terms, he does his job well, and enjoys the opportunities he gets to socialise with the bakers. Very smiley and friendly, however if he’s in the tent, it’s likely something has gone very wrong. He's terrible at baking himself, much to the amusement of those who find out.

Doc: More serious than Tango, he's there to do a job, not make friends. Then he ends up making friends anyway. They're infectious. Grian enjoys 'breaking' things to annoy him (and have a chance to pull him on set to talk to him.) He does, secretly, enjoy the shenanigans the contestants get up to. But he'd never admit it.

Keeping in mind, I care less about the accuracy of this and more about The Shenanigans:

The first time Xisuma gets everything correct in a bake, he is convinced he’s still got something wrong. He spends the entire time until judging expecting there will be something wrong with it that they only discover during judging. A lot of memes are made out of his worrying.

At the end of filming during the heatwave, they have a lake party. Someone challenges Cub to jump in the lake and he cannonballs straight in. The others are surprised. Scar, who knows him well enough by then, is not. Doc is dragged in. Xisuma sits neatly on the edge and looks so relaxed they’d feel too guilty pulling him in. Keralis sits next to him and splashes him a little instead.

Cleo will make frequent asides to her students to try and impart good messages. Sometimes she swears during them. Then swears again upon realising. She uses her teacher voice on the other contestants a few times by accident (and on purpose.)

Someone doubts False’s strength. It’s probably Grian. She makes a beeline straight for him and hauls him onto her shoulder. And possibly into the lake. She makes it her mission to pick up most of the guys, whether they’re ready or not (with prior consent, of course.)

Stress and False work out together in the mornings. Sometimes some of the other contestants will join them and she’ll lead an impromptu work out session. She also does yoga in the evenings to calm down after filming. A fair few join her for that. 

Some of Etho’s jobs include: ‘I’m a gardener so I want this cake to include edible flowers’, ‘I’m a beekeeper so I wanted to use honey.’, ‘I’m a piano tuner so music is a big part of my life’, ‘I used to hack as a part-time job’. His job subtitle changes each episode. He gets a lot of concerned looks from other contestants.

Grian and Scar become frenemies because they’re bench buddies. Grian loves bullying Mumbo off-camera. He argues with Iskall over wearing anything but a red sweater. He loves complimenting everyone’s bakes. He makes a lot of friends. 

Tango and Zed often try to take jobs on the same productions. Zed likes to bother Tango with stupid ways to make broken tech work. Impulse will sit there and try to fix it in earnest. They have to remind Impulse he’s supposed to having a break before filming resumes. The three quickly become friends and can be found hanging out together.

During one of the heatwaves, Impulse near passes out from heat exhaustion. There’s eleven concerned people crowding around him, and it’s one of the only times Bdubs has to seriously raise his voice to gain control of the situation. The others are all sat outside in the shade and given water. Impulse goes back to the hotel and is ambushed by a lot of very concerned friends later that day. They take good care of him and threaten to beat him up if he doesn’t take better care of himself.

During Saturday evenings is when they’ll all lounge around the hotel and hype each other up for the show stopper. They like discussing what their plans are and sharing their ideas. A lot of dumb things happen to help work off the nervous excitement. 

There’s also a lot of calming each other down when they’re stressed out and caring about each other. It’s the Found Family VibesTM.

Even though washing up is supposed to be a punishment, a group of them usually end up doing it together and singing loudly and terribly to the radio.

One of the contestants catches Wels singing as he tests his microphone and drags him outside to come and jam with the contestants. Ren joins in. Etho provides backing. It delays things a little but they agree it’s worth it.

Keralis and Beef at some point have some made up war between them that is completely stupid, entirely overdramatic, and gives all the contestants a lot to laugh about.

There is, absolutely, a prank war part way through the season. It also extends off-set. Nobody is safe.

I haven’t seen anyone doing this AU before, and I apologise if they have! I hope there’s enough unique ideas to set it apart. But yeah, this is the AU I use when I just want some Fluffy content. Thanks for reading!

[mochatears]

Mob Fusion AU Masterlist, I guess

References

1 - Stress, Scar, Grian, Bdubs, Zed

2 — Joe, Cleo, Mumbo

3 — Jevin, Tango, Ren

4 — Xisuma, Iskall, False, Etho

5 — Doc, Keralis, Impulse

6 — TFC, Hypno, Beef, Cub, xB

7 — Wels, Hels, EX

8 — Pearl, Gem, Cub 2.0

Impulse comic (unfinished) [ 1, 2 ]

EX in the Void comic (unfinished) [ 1, 2 ]

Character Tag Links:

BdoubleO100

Cubfan135

Docm77

EthosLab

FalseSymmetry

GeminiTay

GoodTimesWithScar

Grian

Hypnotizd

iJevin

ImpulseSV

Iskall85

JoeHills

Keralis

MumboJumbo

PearlescentMoon

Rendog

StressMonster101

TangoTek

TinFoilChef

VintageBeef

Welsknight

xBCrafted

XisumaVoid

Zedaph

ZombieCleo

EX

HelsKnight

•

Misc/Lore

•

MFAU Extra tag, for non-canon discussion and art of other Minecraft YouTubers in the AU.

[ploppythespaceship]

My Hopes for Picard Season 2

Have some rambly writing while I practice social distancing! Under the cut are my ideas of things I would like to see in the second season of Star Trek: Picard.

More of Laris and Zhaban.

These were two excellent characters that felt somewhat underused -- Zhaban in particular, as Laris got most of the important scenes and dialogue. Their backstory is only really given in the comics, and I’d love to see it explored properly in an actual episode. Either let them join the crew, or give an episode actually devoted to them. Perhaps some former Tal Shiar connections hunt them down, and the La Sirena crew must protect them? I don’t know, but there’s a lot of potential there.

Consequences for Picard’s android body.

Putting Picard’s consciousness into the android body was rather predictable, and seemed a deus ex machina ending for him to simply escape his terminal condition scot-free. He’s essentially the same as he was, and nothing has changed. I would love to see season 2 actually give us drawbacks for this decision. Maybe his android body has some quirks he wasn’t expect. Maybe he breaks down, or someone can hack his programming. Just allow for this major decision to be a defining point of his character going forward, not a snap fix where everything is magically the same.

More xBs.

The xBs were built up as such a good plot point, a group of people to support and rally behind, but then hardly got to do anything. I’d love to see more xBs in season 2, get to know more of them personally, experience their struggles re-integrating into society, and watch characters like Picard and Seven step in to directly help them adjust.

Justice for Hugh.

Hugh’s death was by far the most hated plot point of the season (at least with everyone I’ve spoken to). To bring back this character, make him into someone so warm and wise and instantly lovable, only to kill him off in such a shocking yet underwhelming way -- it’s deeply unfair and honestly harmed the story more than it helped. I’m not saying they should just snap their fingers and bring him back -- they did it with Culber in Discovery season 2, and imho it didn’t work at all -- but if there is a way to organically bring him back and weave him into the story once more, I welcome it. If that’s not possible, then let his presence and death hold greater weight so that he can be given greater meaning at least retroactively.

Consequences for Agnes.

Agnes’s murder of Bruce Maddox was rather brushed aside in the finale, and I don’t think that’s something to be forgotten so easily. I feel the characters should be much less reluctant to trust her, and she should be reluctant to trust herself. I hope to see her explored further in season 2, rather than simply brushing the whole thing aside.

Less Data.

Don’t get me wrong -- I love Data. He’s one of my all time favorite Star Trek characters. But he took over this season, and not always in a good way. The focus was often on him and his legacy, at the expense of other characters both past and present. He was shoehorned into the finale in the strangest way, and personally, his second death scene had absolutely no weight because of that. Brent Spiner says he’s done with the part, and I hope it sticks this time, because as much as I will miss him, Data’s time is done. Let him rest. (I also never want to hear Blue Skies ever again. We’ve done it to death now. Literally.)

More returning characters (and storylines).

While I don’t want past characters taking up all the screentime, I would like to see more coming back. Season 1 felt odd at times when Picard really should have called on old friends like Geordi, Worf, or Beverly for help, and instead he called on new characters the audience had never seen before. There’s a wealth of past characters to bring here -- the most obvious choices being the rest of TNG’s cast. But there’s also Voyager’s cast, which would work well with Seven of Nine. And we can’t forget Deep Space Nine’s cast! There’s much potential to bring back old characters in new ways, and while the thought does make me nervous, for the most part I respect the decisions made for returning characters and generally trust them with the rest.

More development for Narek.

Boy band Romulan here was tragically underdeveloped, only really becoming interesting in the finale when he began playing more of a wild card role. It’s clear there’s much more potential with his character than what they’ve seen, and I’d love to see him continue that unpredictable role with unsure allegiances. Perhaps even a redemption arc? I’m not sure exactly what I want from him, really. Just more than what we’ve been given so far.

More development for Soji.

I don’t think Soji is a bad character. I just think she was sadly underwritten. I can tell you all about what she is, but not who she is. What are her interests? Her motivations? What drives her as a person? I frankly have no idea. The writers have made the mistake of thinking that giving her a mystery is the same as giving her a personality. That needs to be fixed. While it’s easy to pin some of the blame on Isa Briones, I don’t think she’s really a bad actress. She just has so little to work with.

More Elnor.

No character in the series is as tragically sidelined as Elnor. After his introduction episode, he essentially tags along for the rest of the plot, watching as the other characters do everything. You could write him out of the series entirely with very little effort. And it makes me sad because he’s a great character! I want to see him take part in driving the plot next season, and focus further on him as a character.

More Seven of Nine.

Seven was absolutely fantastic in season 1. It was implied that she’s joining La Sirena’s crew, and I’d love her to be a main character next season. There’s clearly much more to her story to explore, including her guilt at now being a killer. And as I said above, I’d like to see Voyager characters return. Imagine seeing Seven opposite Janeway! Or Tuvok! Or the Doctor! It’d be so good.

More holograms, and hologram rights issues.

Rios’s holo-squad grew on me a lot as the series progressed, and I’d like to see even more holograms aside from them. This season focused so heavily on android rights, while largely ignoring the same issues in holograms despite the obvious parallels. Voyager started a trajectory of discussing whether holograms were sentient, primarily with the Doctor, and this series is poised to continue that same issue. You could even bring back those very characters, and let the Doctor, Zimmerman, and Barclay chime in on the issue. It’s a plot point ripe for the picking.

Less serialization.

Full serialization is not a bad thing. There are many shows that pull it off near flawlessly. But I don’t think it’s necessarily the right choice for Star Trek. Letting episodes stand on their own to focus on more individualized plots allows for a greater wealth of storytelling and puts the focus primarily on the characters. This season felt a bit unbalanced at times as it tried to tie all the characters and sideplots together into one, but a more episodic approach would largely negate these issues. There should absolutely be a flow between episodes, and perhaps even a build to a grander finale, but overall I think a slightly more segmented style of storytelling would ultimately be the better one.

More Federation nuance.

One of my biggest gripes with season 1 was its portrayal of the Federation. While I do like taking a harder look at the Federation’s mistakes, especially from such a beloved StarFleet officer like Picard, the show did take a pretty sharp turn from showing the Federation as a perfect utopia to showing them as selfish cowards who put fear before compassion. But it’s a complex organization with complex issues. Picard’s conversation with Clancy implied that there were valid political reasons to withdraw from Romulus, even if it wasn’t necessarily the humanitarian thing to do. I would love to see it explored further, without falling so heavily on one side or the other. The Federation is ultimately trying to be a force for good, but it’s certainly a flawed organization that can cause harm if it isn’t careful. Different characters may have very different views of it, and different levels of what nonsense they are willing to tolerate from it. It’s certainly a hard line to balance in storytelling, but it can be done -- Deep Space Nine did it damn near flawlessly. Be more like Deep Space Nine, Picard.

And that’s all I’ve got for now!

If you actually made it all the way down here, thanks for reading <3

[isagrimorie]

I really find it interesting how different Seven and Hugh are post-severance.

Seven was proud to be Borg. Hugh seemed just like a regular Drone as opposed to Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 01.

Unimatrix 01 is the closest to the Borg Queen and by how the Borg Queen acts with Seven, it feels like Seven is one of the few chosen to replace her.

Some personality seems to have been retained, especially for those who 'grew up' in the Collective.

Hugh was more amenable and open to change, more confused by what was happening to him.

Seven was fully aware of her function, she was the chosen Borg representative to speak for the Borg collective when Janeway requested one.

Seven was very resistant and has several occasions tried to return to the Borg.

It is also interesting to me that for a long time in Voyager, she identified as Borg.

Hugh coined the term xBs as a way to name themselves and take back the name.

It's interesting to me that Seven used the term once when speaking to Elnor in season 1 but mostly, I think Seven thinks of herself as Borg.

Her feelings towards being a Borg and Human are still complicated and it got only more complicated the moment Voyager returned to the Alpha Quadrant.

It seemed like she tried out the more Human side of herself and used 'Annika' as a name but that moment of experimenting on that name usage died the day Icheb died and realized how much she was used and betrayed.

For Seven she is both Human and Borg but she knows she can't comfortably identify herself as Borg because of how much harm the Borg has done to... well, everyone. She's been part of the Collective that's assimilated worlds, she knows this well.

It's a terrible thing to identify as for everyone, it's a complicated premise at best but it's the identity that for better or worse, Seven felt more comfortable with.

In season 2 of Picard, we learn that Seven hasn't been at peace with herself for 20 years because she has been trying to deny her Borg identity.

In Hope and Fear in season 4 and even up to season 6 (as far as I'm up to in the rewatch) Seven's been ambivalent about returning with the Voyager crew back to the Alpha Quadrant.

(And as we know now Seven's fears are founded).

"If we do return to Sector 001 will I adapt to Human civilization a single Borg among billions of individuals?"

Seven did adapt, she trained herself to adapt more Human mannerisms and speech patterns. Trained herself to be an individual the way people of Alpha Quadrant would find more acceptable but in her heart of hearts she is both Human and Brog.

Meanwhile, Hugh seems more comfortable with being identified as an xB. A reclamation and a new term for himself and his other fellow Borg cube members.

Also, I realized rewatching the scene where Seven rescues Elnor, she fell back to her old speech patterns:

"What is happening on this Cube?"

It's interesting for Seven the Artificat is still the Borg Cube. I like that characters who were former Borg drones have complicated and diverse opinions and thoughts about their former identity. I like that Hugh is all but ready to move on from being an xB.

And Seven struggles with it more. I wish Hugh had lived because I wanted more interactions and discussions between Seven and Hugh.

Sure Picard and Seven have a shared experience but in the degrees of shared experience, Hugh and Seven's experience are more aligned. Picard and Janeway would have similar experiences in being Borg.

In a screwed-up sort of way, most of Starfleet now knows how Seven feels as a Borg and as an individual.

[cicaklah]

Star Trek Picard 1x08

Some initial thoughts because I’m up early again, beware I am full of cold, therefore my brain is not working hugely cogently.

Beautiful Flower, Beautiful Flower, a man called Beautiful Flower. There’s a male synth. The name is SO a clue, seeing as the synth girls have very deliberate non-clue names. Vanna Dahj Soji and...their brother, Beautiful Flower. It’s in line with what I would think of as a chinese method of naming with a name having a literal meaning from a idiogram or logogram method of writing? I’m not a linguist though. I worry if I think too hard about this I’ll guess it as I’ve been pretty good at guessing stuff about this so far, and I hate guessing stuff.

(Beautiful Flower inherited Data’s drawing skill...or is just Data, who knows.) 

I think that Beautiful Flower will be a synth in the fashion of Soong, i.e. he’ll be a Maddox. Rios describes the first contact pair as an older man with a young aide. He’s either going to be Maddox, or played by old Brent Spiner, but I’m erring on the side of Maddox, and the Maddox who Agnes killed was a synth, so she won’t need to turn herself in for murder as she didn’t actually murder the real Maddox, who is on the home planet, preserving Agnes for season 2. 

(I kind of wish there wasn’t a season 2 at this point, because I want there to be consequences and I still wish we had the anthology series that Bryan Fuller had originally had greenlit however much I love this and Disco. ur girl loves tragedy, and tragedy is hard in serial television if people have seven season contracts.)

The timeline is curious for me, did Rios say nine years ago the whole Ibn Majid thing happened? So Maddox built the first round of synth girls and a synth boy in 5 years...and probably loads and loads of others if Dahj and Soji are only 3 years old, plus these unknown synth boys we’re just learning about.

There’s SO something else going on. I think the lack of discussion of Lore is probably key. He was dismantled and probably passed to Daystrom, but I don’t think they’ll be bringing him back. Lore wouldn’t have aged at all from how Brent Spiner looked in what, 1993? The deaging technology is good, but not that good.

I think this is all getting a bit muddy, and maybe thats my cold-filled brain. Too many moving parts. 

Still not sure what the point of Elnor, the Borg cube, Seven, the Romulannisters, the whole xB storyline is and how how they all tie in? I thought that maybe there’d be a cube full of borg with Seven as their queen, but nope, that got knocked off very quickly. 

I really liked the episode though, especially the levity of the five Rios holograms, the varying quality of the accents, the backstory of the Ibn Majid, the TERRIBLE photoshop to make Rios clean shaven, all highlights of this episode. As was Raffi yelling that Picard is a fool, because he is and should feel bad for how much he’s fucked up, Agnes meeting Soji.

I still hold out hope that they filmed an extra scene after the end of main filming with a clean shaven Santiago Cabrera and the actual scene on the Ibn Majid where it reveals who Beautiful Flower is if it is going to be data, just because I do want the scrubbed clean with regulation sideburns Rios in the lovely late-era uniform. But if they did, I’m sure they would have just taken a photo and not clone-tooled off his beard, and we haven’t seen a federation starship interior so the set doesn’t exist, so I am dreaming sadly.

So, the secret lady cabal of romulans destroyed Mars. How did they find the flaw in the Synth’s code? Did they have someone inside of Daystrom? Did Oh just download it off the starfleet github? Was it the secret lady cabal who sped up the destruction of the Romulan star, as implied in the last great hope? Why did they do that? Other than because the evacuation was going well and they needed to inflame Federation tensions? Speaking of, did we see all the faces of the secret lady cabal members? Because I was kind of expect Agnes would be one of them and be a deep cover Romulan spy, though this would have been the episode to reveal it if so.

What really hit me this episode was how much I didn’t care that Picard was there. The writers have done a good job making him redundant to the story now, he’s so slow, so out of touch, so ancillary to the story. Which is good, in my opinion. I love the new characters and I think they’ll kill off Picard at some point anyway, and rename the ship the JLP. 

I am not ready for this to end. A two part finale sounds good, I just hope it works better than the Disco season 2 finale, which I did not enjoy all that much.