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dredgesnails · 2 months

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i very badly want a double life 2: electric boogaloo but crucially no one is allowed to be paired up with their soulmate from the first one (except ranchers) and also lizzie and gem and mumbo and skizz are there too. anyway here are some pairings i think would be funny or interesting or would please me personally:

mumbo + scar: complete the mumscarian circuit

mumbo + lizzie: statistically the worst players right after jimmy. lizzie died before him once and she can do it again (and take mumbo with her)

grian + jimmy: nightmare scenario for the both of them

pearl + gem: an unfair matchup as they would win no problem but i love them together and i think we deserve them together after the events of secret life

scar + tango: wildly unpredictable. scar takes damage constantly but (almost) always escapes by the skin of his teeth. tango on the other hand has blown himself up before

pair them up best + worst in order (pearl + jimmy, gem + mumbo, scott + lizzie etc) and see if they manage to balance each other out. this takes out some of the randomness but there are still some fun duos i think would come out of it (etho + bdubs, skizz + martyn, impulse + bigb) and i also think pearl could keep jimmy alive long enough to not die first

and for lore reasons:

grian + bigb: lets see how the secret soulmates can handle being real soulmates

scott + jimmy: ok i know the last time they were together jimmy doomed them both with his curse but this time it’ll be different scott’s lucky now

cleo + etho: the progression of divorced with kids > roomies > soulmates tickles me

ren + martyn: i miss renchanting

+ bonus because i have been thinking about who i would want joining the life series a lot. this is who i want to join

doc + anyone really but mostly grian: okay seriously i imagined doc in the life series once and now ive been consumed by the desire to see it. especially with his health linked to grian. think about it. would be fun with ren also for entirely opposite reasons

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stellocchia · 5 months

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Thinking of Secret Life SMP hybrid headcanons right now...

Grian would be a parrotlet. They're the smallest group of parrots and I feel like with how pathetic he's been this season he deserves to be just a little guy. He's still a pesky bird who, as season 6 proved, can definitely cause some mischief despite his reduced size, but he's a little guy anyway.

Jimmy is not a canary. Because, yes, he may have the canary curse, but that's just a fancy name for the curse, not necessarily his hybrid type. No, my man is a dog. He's a goddamn chihuahua. He's all bark and annoying but you take a single threatening step toward him and he shivers in fear.

On the topic of dogs, Martyn is a pomeranian. I'm specifically making him a small dog too because, despite wanting to act cool at the end of session 6, he is still very much the one who was first on yellow and red. My man is not big dog-coded.

Now, unpopular opinion, but Scar is a raccoon hybrid. He's a mischievous chaotic menace of a man. A little criminal ready to scam, commit arson, kill, and steal. He's a raccoon. He hasn't burrowed under anyone's house yet (that I remember at least) but that wouldn't be out of character either. Honestly, I'm appalled by the fact that this isn't a far more popular headcanon for him.

And, before I move on from dogs, Etho is also dog-coded. Specifically an Akbash (big white golden retriever-looking fuckers used for the protection of livestock). I just feel like the protectiveness and overall vibe fit him very well.

Finally, moving on from dogs. Cleo is obviously a zombie hybrid. There are no two ways around it. Though this does allow for my little headcanon that, having to learn on their own skin how to sew they became really good and really quick and they're the ones making all the new outfits for everyone else.

Gem meanwhile is specifically a sculk hybrid. Though I like to think that that came about when she opened the portal. She was a deer hybrid before (mostly because I like the subversion of expectations with a "prey" hybrid so to speak being arguably the most bloodthirsty person on the server) and then it spread like an infection. I figure by now her infected half straight-up looks something like Belos monster for from TOH:

Scott is something like a Reakirt’s Blue Butterfly. Both because the colors match him, and because he is kinda The Social Butterfly. My man is always out and about mingling with others. He's so friendly that he literally didn't struggle to pull off the "love you" challenge when everyone admitted that no one else would have been able to. It would be a waste not to make him some kind of butterfly at least.

Now, for Impulse I have something less reasoned, I just think the idea of him being an imp called Impulse is way too funny to resist. And he is way more of a mischievous one than I usually see people talk about. I've seen the phasmophobia stream where he killed everyone with the cursed items several times in a row just because he wanted to try them out. I know what he's capable of.

Meawhile his bestie Skizz is so capibara coded it's unreal. Like, don't get me wrong, he's plenty chaotic. But also you will never find anyone more lawful good in the Life Series than him. I've been thinking this since Love Island was founded. My man is the king of chilling with everyone. (Aside from Jimmy, rip Jimmy).

At the risk of being boring, I also like seeing Tango as a salamander hybrid. Exclusively because of the mythological connection between salamanders and fire. Also, the idea that every time he's flying (though it's funnier if it's also when he's simply jumping) he's nothing but a ball of fire with a lizard tail is very funny to me.

BigB is a hard one because I've only watched a couple of episodes from his POV so I'm not quite as familiar with the lore surrounding him as I am with the others. So I'm not sure. I want to say enderman because of his cryptid vibes this season, but he's not one of the characters with the biggest connection to the end. Those are mostly BDubs, Gem, and Lizzie, so I don't know. I'm open to suggestions.

Talking about BDubs, why are there no ender dragon hybrid headcanons for him around? I think it would be incredibly ironic if the dragon slayer was a dragon himself. Also, his house is under the Earth just like the End portals. Trust me, it makes so much sense. He's small but so full of righteous anger.

Pearl is no hybrid, she's literally just a witch. I've seen the WITCH animatic and that fundamentally changed my view of her forever. Before I would have said a moth hybrid of some kind because I do like moth Pearl, but I love that specific interpretation so much it's unreal. She is a witch with an army of hellhounds at her back and call.

Mumbo is a vampire because I've seen some art of vampire Mumbo at some point in time and it hasn't left my head since. Also, he's one of the players with the highest bloodlust every time he turns red. We're 2 for 2 on that with his appearances in the Life series. And it's usually also what leads to his demise. So I feel like that would be fitting for a vampire.

Meanwhile, my dearly beloved blorbo Joel is a honey-badger. This is a headcanon that is incredibly dear to me and I've never seen around but it's literally SO FITTING. The absolute crackhead energy, the lack of self-preservation, and the surprising sturdiness as time and time again he gets himself in impossible situations and still manages to survive until pretty much the end are all that exact honey-badger vibe. Like, just thinking of him summoning a hoard of zombies to fight off several infected and surviving for quite a while in those conditions just, really proves my point. Enough said.

Lizzie meanwhile is a very sad sopping wet cat. Just absolutely miserable. One of those cats who look like they're constantly grumpy. The frown has deepened ever since no one came to her party and she's still frowning in the void of death.

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fitzs-space · 10 months

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I absolutely love ur mer designs for Etho, Grian and our lovely sea monster ofc lol. Do you have any more in depth refs for their designs, id love to see more of how they look if possible! /nf ofc

only really had the couple rough sketches for their designs unfortunately! given its how I work with most of my stuff with just quick sketches like this. But I'll give the couple details I remember adding into their designs! Main notes will be I spent more time on Etho because I knew they'd be seen the most,, also that this this Is a default of how I've always drawn mermaids, with the whole dark eyes and covered in scales and fins, more siren esk in a sense.

with Etho the main things I remember adding is chancing the headband and gloves to be more like kelp being wrapped around/ braided, because In general I like drawing mermaid outfits with a more found object type vibe to them. the other main thing was intentionally giving them 9 fins in their design, 6 on the tail, 2 on their fourarms, and the one on the back. Cause I enjoy drawing Etho with the kitsune vibe. even though I;ve only ever drawn them with the full ears n tail like,, once or twice? who knows.

Also! points points, finally had an excuse to draw their tattoos!

only notes I really had for Grian was wanting him to have the rounded Fins cause feather vibes. and I never really looked up actual fish or animals when I draw quick designs, so I go off pure vibes and vague memory of what I think the animal looks like,,, and we end up with stuff like this.

and drew them with the void damage again! thought it would look pretty to have a tail and scales that looked like a void/spacelike. and It wouldn't have been a good colour pallet to have him in just pure red with the poncho and tail bein the same colour. I did also try the white hair too, even just being streaks like my s5 Ex design, but It wasn't really working out.

I looked at my old design of Xb and went, "what can I do to make this being even prettier." and here we are /hj the full sea monster style Is something only like five of the hermits would have seen, so its not a common thing. I'd like to think Xb also like triples in size when like this, but its hart to show that when its just a single character shot like this. the default Xb design I will use is the "just some guy" kinda thing with only a couple fishy details if you look close enough. the whole a couple scales around the eyes like freckles and a vague impression of gills that are mostly covered up buy the hoodie anyways. the third eye is something Xb always keeps closed, and is normally hidden behind bangs

yada yada, I draw my Xb design as a character who just does everything to act as "Just some guy" and not as a full on monster of the deep sea kind thing only other design notes would be me adding the runes into Xb's horns, cause I've got some random magics lore Ideas, and I've been meaning to also add some to Tango's design as well and I originally had drawn Xb's earrings as a way to match with Hypnos, forgot that I drew this one with just a teardrop,, but I know my Hypno design does have both a eye and a bell on his earrings. Silly reference to a cool fic that was a good chunk of inspiration to how I characterize my Xb

Idk, not as many thoughts behind these designs as I had in the ties comic, but still a couple none the less!

#answering the thoughts #hermitcraft #headcanon dump #ish #grian #ethoslab #xbcrafted #fitzs art #I try to use no pronouns for my Xb. so the writing may read odd if you don't know that!#silly mermaid designs

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the-hipster-nugget · 7 months

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yeah I saw that I was very proud of my legacy haha. Anyways the lily pad lore is that during 3rd life, the boat boys’ first and most significant interaction was when they kinda just chatted for a bit in a swamp — Joel was trying to make a lily pad monopoly (kinda like the sand monopoly) and he found Etho and they started talking. But yeah basically they first really “met” while in their boats.

Anyways I think it’s really interesting to look at double life with the third life context because you see parallels like that - Joel as unhinged and Etho along for the ride, and the boats. Obviously desert duo. But also - Martyn pranking Cleo amongst everyone with the creeper effect, and everyone being (jokingly) annoyed with it vs Cleo and Martyn’s tense relationship in DL. Scott and the *lack of* Pearl, and this being the central reason why they are apart in DL. I could say more but within the lore it’s almost like the Watchers were like oh this could’ve been. Let’s rerun third life with these relationships strengthened, except of course they’re the Watchers, so it’s the person who wasn’t part of any of these relationships *because she wasn’t there* and thus in a sense doomed to be alone that wins. The story will always happen like it did in third life. It’s just the details that differ… Idk I think there is a lot more to say but yeah :3

SORRY I READ THIS YESTERDAY BUT JUST MARINATED ON IT TO RESPOND CUZ I LOOOVE THAT I LOVE. THE SYMBOLISM

I love boat boys relationship being.. called that. They really are in a boat together, Joel that violently motivated captain pushing on, and Etho is blankly sitting on the other end of that same boat, just surviving. He’s just going with the wind of the sail, he’s that pale white sail and Joel is the rushing dark blue almost black wave that pushes their rocky boat along . I love boat boys

#boat boys #ethobeans

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flecks-of-stardust · 3 months

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what are those mods that were cooler than MSC? if they're that good i have to try them out

So upon further thought of this topic, I think i’m misrepresenting my thoughts on my enjoyment of MSC. A more accurate way to put it would be that I had more fun with a lot of other mods. However, I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to compare MSC to them, because the goals of MSC are different from that of other smaller mods. I guess this counts as an analysis post; this will be long.

TLDR: I had more fun with a number of region mods and I think some modcats are cool, but Rain World’s design makes having a DLC that stays true to its core ethos difficult, so I find it hard to really blame the MSC team for MSC being a lackluster DLC.

Regions

When I say that I enjoyed other mods more than MSC, I think a lot of it is in the level editing (ie, lediting), in the sense that region mods have consistently wowed me far more than MSC’s regions ever did. Conceptually, the regions that it added were incredible; I loved seeing Moon as close to her prime as she could ever be shown in Spearmaster’s time (ie LTTM the region; DM), but also finding her ruined structure (MS) as Rivulet, and the idea behind Silent Construct (CL) is also fantastic. But gameplay wise? I didn’t particularly enjoy any of these regions, especially not CL. I hated the spider clogs that I had no way of dealing with, and overall I really just bumrushed it and cheated to get to the story. Metropolis (LC) and Outer Expanse were okay in terms of gameplay, but LC’s tiling and geometry is just kind of boring, if I had to be honest. It’s quite repetitive and not particularly unique, except for maybe Atop the Tallest Tower at a stretch. OE was fine by virtue of not really having another region to compare it to and also being comparatively more plant focused, but honestly, other mods have still wowed me more. So I dunno.

Like when it comes to having regions that feel interesting to explore and are also nice to look at, there’s always Pilgrims’ Ascent and Scorched District, both by Myrmice, and these two also fit so well with vanilla Rain World’s vibe to me. These two, along with the Mast from Snoodle, are all but canon to vanilla to me, because they just fit so well and add to vanilla while still maintaining their own identities as regions. And even beyond having to feel vanilla necessarily, because that’s not always the point of mods, there’s regions like Stormy Coast, Coral Caves, Howling Rift, more that I won’t list because of how long the list will get, but the point is that all of these regions give me more engaging gameplay and paths for exploration than I felt I got for any MSC added region. Granted it’s been a while since I played MSC’s content in full, and my memory of this stuff is generally poor, but I’d rather explore Aqueducts (OA) again than do MS. OA was big and I kept getting lost even with a map, but it was big and disorienting in a way that just felt better to me than MS. The same goes for Deserted Wastelands and CL, personally.

MSC regions feel very vanilla-like to me, in that they’re kind of easy to filter out of your conscious processing so you can focus on other things. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, but for the price that you have to pay for Downpour, I think it falls a little short. The thing is that MSC is very much story-focused, putting more emphasis on the slugcats you play as and their stories rather than the lediting of the regions exclusive to them (in my opinion anyways. I ain’t a leditor). Which brings me to my next point:

Modcats and Story

This might be a bit of a hot take, but I think Rain World is inherently a gameplay focused game that doesn’t support much overt story or plot. The lore in all three vanilla campaigns is entirely optional, and if you kill Moon? Fuck you! No lore for you! And even if you wanted the lore, you have to figure out that pearls have to be taken to her to be read, and that the colored ones have unique lore, and you have to find them and hope the scavs don’t take the pearl first. Even with Hunter, you can choose to toss the green neuron and do your own thing. It doesn’t even stop you from ascending either. The story is entirely optional in Rain World. So then to add any story focused campaign at all inherently takes it away from Rain World’s initial design. And on top of that, you’re playing as a slugcat. It’s really hard to add any sort of story in Rain World that doesn’t circle back to iterators in some way. But then what else do you do besides ascend? Eat a few specific types of food? Gourmand does that. Kill a specific creature? That’s Artificer’s thing. Talk to all the echoes? That’s Saint, and kind of Hunter in a way. What else can you do without radically changing the structure of Rain World itself? And to that end, would that still be Rain World? I’m not saying it’s impossible to have a story based campaign that doesn’t involve iterators, but I do think that it’s really difficult to have them be completely irrelevant to the story and still have an engaging story, because Rain World itself is so not story focused. But if you don’t add story, then what do you do in the campaign that doesn’t make it just a rehashed version of Survivor’s campaign?

So like. I can’t really take issue with MSC’s story based focus that much, because genuinely, what else do you do? And basically any modded slugcat available in 1.9 that I think is worth trying falls into the same category. I think Pitch Black is really promising, but it introduces A Lot of changes to the world, and there’s currently almost no story. Vinki isn’t iterator focused necessarily, but their story still hinges on pissing Pebbles off and is overall very silly (not in a bad way! But it doesn’t fit the vibe of Rain World). And Gravel Eater,, you can’t get more intertwined with iterators than with GE’s story, but they’re still my favorite modcat because of how detailed their story is and how interesting their mechanics are. And if you just have a scug with abilities and no story, that’s… not really interesting to play, because then it’s essentially just Survivor, but you’re able to like, say, make spore puffs for free.

Maybe I’m just not creative enough in this aspect, idk. But genuinely I can’t think of much else to do in this game that doesn’t involve iterators in some way. If you know me, you’d know I’m Iterators McGee who has written 70k+ words about a character who has literally no canon dialogue. I fucking love iterators, but I think their stories should be separate from that of slugcats, but in game, just. How? I genuinely don’t know.

Other Thoughts

I think in some ways I view MSC as more of a framework that has allowed other people to build their own stories off of it. The only other mod that has a scale even remotely comparable to MSC is Drought, which is also iterator centric in story. I can’t speak to its lediting since I haven’t played Drought myself (but I’ve heard the quality… fluctuates?), but story wise… yeah. I don’t know. I just don’t think Rain World can really have a DLC that doesn’t pull it away from its original ethos in some way. I would not want Drought to be a DLC either, as cool as I think it is, and I still value a lot of things about MSC. It’s lackluster as a DLC because again, what sort of campaign can you add that doesn’t add a story that isn’t iterator related in any way?

I guess the way to summarize this is that I think MSC tells some really interesting stories through its gameplay. Even the parts I hated are part of the story it’s trying to tell, and on that front I think it does well. But by virtue of being story focused (and, by virtue of story in this game being very iterator centric), it doesn’t feel as much like Rain World, and so it’s not as good as a DLC as it would have been as just a mod. And now that it exists and is widely used, other people have been spurred to make their own ideas and show their creativity, going bigger and bolder than MSC in some aspects. And regarding me enjoying region mods more than MSC’s lediting, I think enjoying the region for being a region is kind of the fucking point of playing a region mod, whereas that isn’t exactly MSC’s focus. So some things are hard to compare.

This is kind of an incoherent ramble but I hope I got the main points across. I still like MSC and I won’t tolerate anyone bashing it here. You will get blocked.

#not adding any tags really but. up it goes i guess

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bellshazes · 5 months

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finally figured out something I've been wrassling with for a week now, which is that I think a lot of fanon stuff wears me out bc I want something different. but I couldn't express that difference btwn what I try to do with my work and what I see popularly - my first thought was I don't love stuff that takes the fictional world too seriously, but I do that too! I don't always dislike it.

but I think what I want more of is people fictionalizing aspects of a series not to say something abt the internal logic or fictional reality of that series, but in order to say sth about the world we live in with it. like if I am writing etho and bdubs listening to each other's eps from their singleplayer worlds the point is abt their irl friendship and the funny ways you can influence someone without directly talking necessarily, and pointing out subtle but direct references they made. and that meta abt grian & etho's audience lore - I know other ppl must think abt what it says for an author/person making things to acknowledge their audience in the work, and how necessary that is as a YTer & all the varied says ppl develop of handling that! to fictionalize it is a kinder thing than the belabored repetition of No Guys, Please Stop X Annoying Behavior a lot of big channels have to go thru. anyway this is not what fandoms largely do but I've been spoiled before and where are the rest of you who do this. email me ever

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astronomical-bagel · 2 years

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YES i want to hear what pokemon the last-lifers would be

OKAY okay okay i had SOOO much fun doing this, i spent hours looking through my pokemon book and even looking up some when i couldn't find one that matched perfectly. Some of these are based off of vibes and favoritism of pokemon, but i swear that i have great reasons for every pokemon i chose and i put real thought behind these. We’ll go in order of the pokemon alphabetically. !!Also, I have to make this in two posts bc of the ten-image limit. !! Ok? Ok!

Jimmy -> Absol (Dark Pokemon)

Ok this is literally the y/n pokemon. It even gets wings in its mega evolution!! But it matches jimmy for one important reason: the Absol showing up is a sign that a disaster is about to happen. Y’know, like a canary. (Fun fact: there is no canary pokemon, which is vv surprising to me.) Anyways the absol’s mega evolution can kill people by flapping its wings at them LOL. smth smth grian in 100hrs and all that

2. Martyn -> Chesnaught (Grass-Fighting Pokemon)

There are two reasons why I chose Chesnaught for martyn. One, i wanted him to be a grass type, bc idk he wears green!! It fits him. And two, i wanted him to be loyal. The enty for this pokemon says, “When its friends are in trouble, Chesnaught uses its own body as a shield. Its shell is tough enough to protect it from a powerful explosion.” So. that seems pretty loyal to me. I almost chose Sawsbuck, the deer pokemon, because it changes with the season and Martyn used to do that (his main skin is technically his “spring skin”, but i thought going for smth more focused on loyalty would be best.

3. Tango - Cyndaquil (Fire Pokemon)

I HAD to make tango a fire type, you know i couldnt not. This is an example of my favoritism, bc honestly i could have chosen any other fire type pokemon, but this ones always been my favorite. Anyways, this guy’s flames get hotter with its emotions, and prone to angry outbursts (cough cough last life lmao).

4. Joel -> Gengar (Ghost-Poison Pokemon)

I chose this guy simply bc of how SKRUNKLY he is. The bulbapedia describes him as, “… very mischievous, and at times, malicious. It enjoys playing practical jokes and casting curses, such as pretending to be one's shadow, then behaving erratically.” Very joel-y, in my opinion.

5. Ren -> Houndoom (Dark-Fire Pokemon)

This one was interesting. Theres no end to dog pokemon, but this one in particular was listed as loyal (It cooperates with others skillfully. When it becomes your partner, it's very loyal to you as its Trainer and will obey your orders) Seeing how in third and last life ren was ride-or-die with his chosen team, i thought this one was best. Also, its SUPER edgy so i thought it fit, given his tendency for dramatics (/lh). A high contender for Ren was the Aegislash, a sword pokemon that was commonly used by royalty, but its lore was a taaad too regicidal – and honestly, homicidal in general – to make the cut. (no pun intended)

6. Etho -> Lucario (Fighting-Steel Pokemon)

When i was choosing a pokemon for etho, i knew for a fact i wanted it to be a fighting type. This pokemon can sense the auras around people and pokemon and predict their movements. Etho has always felt like a very strategic guy to me, thought tbh im not sure if that was propaganda from the ethogirls or if its from my own perception of the guy. Anyways, they seemed to match each other. I almost chose the Oshawatt, bc idk i like the vibes, but it wasnt a fighting type.

7. Scott -> Lurantis (Grass Pokemon)

When looking for a pokemon for scott i wanted it to be some sort of flower-like pokemon, with the whole flower husbands and his love for cute things, but i wanted it to have a solid head on its shoulders. This pokemon is based off of the Orchid mantis, which i have been fascinated with for ages. It looks so pretty!! Anyways, this pokemon both looks like a flower and is known for its “elegant moves”. It is also very discerning when it comes to who it is loyal to. If you dont take care of it well enough, it wont trust you. I feel like that works for Scott a lot because he wont team up with anyone unless he really thinks its worth it.

OKAY thats the end of the first post, ill post the other one real quick!!

#if my character analyses are off no the arent #i am correct about every character and am the authority on information about them #except for etho i recognize the ethogirls as the superiority in this case #astronomical asks #im maintaging this i spent too long on this for it to flop #double life smp #dlsmp #dlsmp jimmy #dlsmp martyn #dlsmp tango #dlsmp joel #dlsmp ren #dlsmp etho #dlsmp scott

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catboy-kakashi · 2 years

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please please talk to us about actual canary jimmy and those flour bastards

AH. okay well. If u insist

Okay im typing this on my phone as i pass out so pls excuse any mistypes and long winding sentences. This is a stream of consciousness that youve just uncorked my friend

ANYWAY. I really really love canary-and-coal-miner team rancher art, right? And i love birds, and strip mining in minecraft, so i thought. Well! What if i came up with a funny little au where tango is a coal miner and jimmy is his little canary buddy?

Of course, actual coal mining is very scary, and i only write funny goofy things, so this is Mined Craft™️ coal mining. Anyway, tango takes up a job working for some unnamed mining company working under TFC, since i love his mining videos

I havent decided which other hermits to include yet? Im def including grian, joel, and lizzy, since theyre often featured in jimmy’s non-minecraft videos. I dont want to include too many and risk bogging down the story bc i get too caught up in writing accurate voices for everyone, but i might also write in some cameos of bdubs and etho or something. I want to include scott but im afraid i wont be able to properly balance a characterization of him hamming up on the “why yes my ex husband DID disappear under mysterious circumstances and i got most of his items. Why do you ask :)” facade while also deep down being quite sad and upset about jimmy just vanishing off the face of the earth. And then if i DID balance it properly im afraid it would come off more angsty than intended

ANYWAY. Uh. I dont know much lore about hermitcraft bc im still catching up on the lore-heavy videos (i like to just listen to people build/design things while i strip mine in my own world), but i’m thinking there’s enough wacky magic hijinks that i could justify my idea

My idea being that jimmy actually wasnt ALWAYS a canary, he wound up getting turned into one due to [redacted] (bc i havent come up with that part yet and am not particularly pressed to do so). Jimmy used to be a canary hybrid but now he’s full canary - still the same on the inside, but now he’s a tiny bird that loves to cause problems

None of his friends know this happened to him, or else they would have been working hard to get him back to normal. Instead, grian notices two things about this particular canary: he’s way more belligerent and vocal than the other canaries, hardly acting like a prey animal at all, and he seems to be prone to winding up in the parts of the mine that get gas leaks. He’s actually starting to get concerned that this poor little bastard bird has brain damage at this point and thats why hes Like That

So, anyway, grian and the others start calling this canary Timmy, bc it kind of reminds them of their missing friend who was also a canary hybrid and a little shit with terrible luck. They tend to keep timmy on the sidelines bc theyre worried hes been through too much and dont want him passing out anymore

Then, along comes tango! Tango, a blazeborn, is of course a major safety risk inside of a mine where gas leaks and combustibles are common. they trust him well enough to be careful and not blow himself up, but they also cant send him down the usual mineshafts, so they have him working mostly near the deepest parts of the cave, away from the coal veins and closer to the lava pits that he can withstand easier, so he winds up mining alone for the most part

And they think, hey, this is perfect! Now we have someone we can send timmy with so that he’s not cooped up all day. So tango winds up spending several hours a day just exploring deep caves and talking to himself, hanging out with this weird little bird that grian and joel love to bully

Anyway, long story short, this is me indulging in my own personal love of tiny animals and basically writing about tango going “ive had timmy for one day but if anything happened to him i’d blow this place up with myself in it”. Its just dumb little fluffy stuff like jimmy and tango doing back and forth whistle calls (jimmy of course being safely tucked away in an oxygen chamber the whole time), tango absolutely decking his room out with lots of perches and things bc he noticed jimmy hates cages, and tango spending his free time walking around with a bird nestled in his hair

Mostly this is just snapshot scenes in my head, stuff like grian explaining to tango how timmy got his name and what not. But yea this has been taking over my brain for weeks now!!!! Please help me i still need to finish my other wips!!!!!!!!!!

#can u tell im unmedicated 😔#AHHHHHH im like actually shaking bc my brain got so excited to dump all that shit out thank u for indulging me ajhsjsbbsn #anyway. i love those funny guys they mean everything 2 me #holy shit ouuuuuu i need to go drink water now #anon im kissing u so sweetly pls feel free to message me off anon i do not bite usually # camtankerous is whining #long post

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troglobite · 4 months

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laskfjsl

okay separately i watched season 3 of hilda and was a sobbing mess for the last 35 minutes of the final episode.

also i would bet money that netflix shortchanged them and said "FINE you get ONE more season. but it's only EIGHT episodes, because fuck you."

because season 3 could easily have been 2 more seasons on its own. like come the fuck on.

they introduced AND resolved their ENTIRE FAMILY LORE in fucking EIGHT EPISODES. that's shitfucking absurd.

but also i cannot begin to comprehend how AMAZINGLY they executed that to make me a sobbing, blubbering mess at the end. absolutely fucking destroyed me.

something about hilda just. really. fucking hits me. which is wild because i don't identify with her at all. i find her mildly annoying because, like my mom, when children recklessly endanger themselves by ignoring their friends and parents in media, it drives me UP THE FUCKING WALL.

i got immune to it as i watched, and the world of the show also goes out of its way to demonstrate that realistically, in this world, nothing's gonna happen to hilda. the consequences are always otherworldly or strange or narrative, and she can tumble down as many cliffsides as she wants and be fine. and so can everyone else! absurdity. but it means that when she doesn't listen, it's like, well yeah i guess to you your mom WOULD be overprotective, because you've scaled sheer cliff faces and tumbled to what, in the REAL world, would be sure death, and come out almost entirely unscathed. so yeah i get it. lol

and it matches the fantasy/magical world of the show so it works.

but anyway point being i don't relate to her in any way, or any of the characters, really. and i'm not someone who HAS to to care about or enjoy a piece of art or media, CLEARLY.

but i mention it to say that something about the show, story, characters, art, ethos and thesis, etc. just absolutely gutpunches me.

the deerfox episode? bawling every time i watch it. absolutely emotionally devastating.

and i don't cry at every episode. i am COMPELLED by it, though. it makes me FEEL and THINK. it's just so well done.

and the series finale, all 80 minutes of it, just absolutely destroyed me.

it was a situation where i could see all the narrative beats and the "twists" before they were revealed, but all that means is i'm an adult watching a children's show and they're incredibly good storytellers for me to know what's happening.

and knowing it, and knowing likely how it would end, etc., i was still absolutely devastated.

and they make you reckon with SERIOUS SHIT in the finale. even though everything ended up being okay, they really made the stakes REAL. and it was HEAVY!

and just so effective.

i was bummed because in looking up who the voice actor for mr. pooka was, i got spoiled for some plot points and i was REALLY annoyed about that.

but then they ended up being relatively minor plot points because it didn't reveal anything about the CONTEXT of those reveals, so they were still incredibly impactful.

oh one thing, though, and i guess spoilers for season 3 if you haven't watched it (and i HIGHLY recommend it. seasons 1 and 2 and the movie are AMAZING, and season 3 is DEVASTATINGLY good)

when her dad shows the fuck up out of nowhere and is like "haha i'm cool, right? :D you take after me! let's go do things! haha i'm completely broke! let's go out to eat! i have a weird job to do, yeah, come with me! haha lemme let you drive at an unreasonably young age! we're out in the middle of nowhere, it's fine!"

let's just say i sat stonefaced or grimacing through that entire episode, reliving some extremely identical memories of my own. lol

spoilers over

anyway, something about the heart of the show is so profoundly moving, and i absolutely love it. i highly recommend it, and i am in awe of how much they accomplished in season 3.

also miriam margoyles is in it!

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acerace · 3 years

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...you have opened my eyes to a vast universe of VintageBeef lore that I was unaware of. I knew about the New Hermit Order, of course, and the UHC invention, and I've watched a few of his CTM things but -- I will take all the info and lore you feel like giving out because Beef is amazing and my knowledge is so small.

Vintagebeef my beloved <3

So the thing is, right, until about 2016 I only watched two (2) youtubers- Vintagebeef for Minecraft and aDrive for Pokemon (and funnily enough both of them are named Dan irl). So I've watched most of Beef's videos over the years and have a general knowledge of most of his stuff, except because it's been like a decade I don't remember where most of the lore comes from XD

The thing with him is that he doesn't do Lore tm the way other mcyters often do lore- he doesn't have an extensive RP series to draw from like Grian, doesn't have a solo world with steadily increasing amounts of lore like Etho or Zisteau, and while he's played on SMPs and been involved in storylines before it's not really the focus of his episodes unlike with Evo or Legacy or Empires

So where does that leave us?

IRL, Beef always has multiple series running at the same time. Often he's playing on an smp while doing a singleplayer, often modded, series as well as a CTM or modpack with a group of friends. For example, right now he's playing on Hermitcraft, doing weekly Pixelmon and Building a Zoo episodes, and a CTM map with Slip. And to me, this translates to one thing: Beef is an adventurer. He travels frequently- he explores a world and when he decides he's done, he leaves for the next one. That's the basis of my personal interpretation of his series and his character for my writing.

Ok so reading this back, this got extremely long and didn't explain much in the way of lore, somehow? If anyone has any additions to add please do so, I am very definitely leaving out a lot and would love to see what other lore people remember and are using for Beef! I didn’t include the Hermitcraft stuff since my memory of season 4 is blurry (his base was themed after the Martian, that much I know, and he and Iskall were buddies :D) and most of the s5 NHO lore is best watched from Bdub’s perspective from what I remember, and the only s6 stuff is a single line in Hermitgang and then the Area 77 arc with its possibility of an NHO reunion which we did not get rip. And s7 of course had the cloning machine and also the Podzol Party as the main lore. So all the original rambling is still below the cut though it is very long, and I'm gonna bullet point the main stuff here instead:

Actual canonical things:

Invented UHC and was the only survivor of the first ever uhc (Mindcrack UHC s1)

Married to an ender dragon (one of the UHCs I think), later father to a different dragon (Mindcrack season 3? I think?)

Might not have legs if you choose to take that joke as canon (Mindcrack s2)

Was a wizard (RAD)

is a zookeeper (Building a Zoo)

Had a wife and kids (Sims in Minecraft)

Part of the Trial of the B Team court case (Mindcrack)

NHO founder, founder of the Podzol Party (Hermitcraft)

Created a cloning machine that sort of works (Hermitcraft)

Played the Forest which is I believe the first time he and Keralis played together (look up the trigger warnings for this one, it's a horror game)

Was the creator/owner of Sourceblock SMP (featuring some familiar faces if you know Legacy, Empires, or MCC) and there is literal magic from a mysterious sourceblock of water that teleports people and summons mobs and probably more stuff that I haven't seen yet since I'm still watching it myself

Things you can infer:

Good with animals (Life in the Woods, Pixelmon, Ark)

Is a car nerd (irl and all of the car games he's played)

Is a highly experienced adventurer who has traveled through dozens of worlds both vanilla and modded, across multiple dimensions (Twilight Forest, the Aether, the Betweenlands, Limbo), completed dozens of monuments, fought in blood sports, survived apocalypse after apocalypse, tamed dinosaurs, and played a lot of prop hunt and golf with your friends

If you're looking for what to watch for lore purposes, I'd say the Mindcrack UHCs and Team Canada's RAD series are pretty good, definitely Sourceblock and HC s5, plus the Diversity CTM maps and Ruins of the Mindcrackers maybe? And Mindcrack Prank Wars for the chaos and the origin of Team Canada. And if you can handle horror than the Forest is fun and if you don't do horror you can watch the Pojkband play golf or prop hunt they're hilarious I love them sm I want a Pojkband reunion So Bad

Beef's first series was a singleplayer series in beta 1.4_01 though he had played the game extensively before that, and was a big fan of Guude, having watched his own Minecraft videos. The series was functionally a hardcore one where if he died Beef would delete the world and start again! I haven't actually Watched this series so idk if he died or how often lmao. When Guude made Mindcrack, which was btw one of the very first Minecraft SMPs, he also hosted a competition for people to join, and Beef submitted a video (which is still viewable on his channel I believe!) and won, and was added to Mindcrack in season 2 :D (fun fact, Guude said that even if Beef hadn’t won he would have added him anyway)

Two running jokes emerged from Mindcrack- pulling a Vintagebeef and Beef doesn't have legs. The first is a reference to Beef dying of fall damage (I believe the exact instance was him trying to jump into his swimming pool and failing spectacularly) and after the incident, every time someone died of fall damage they were pulling a Vintagebeef. The second joke comes from Guude, who joked that the reason Beef wasn't going to a convention was because he didn't have legs, and then he pranked Beef's base by building a giant pair of legs at the entrance to his castle so you had to walk between them to get into the base. This joke has long since died and both Beef and Guude feel pretty bad about it iirc because there were people who genuinely thought Beef was disabled and were emailing him supportive messages and stuff oops. So if you go looking on the Salad or find old Mindcrack fics, you might see references to Beef having prosthetic legs!

Mindcrack also brought about the creation of several Player groups- Team Nancy Drew, Team Canada, and GOB to name a few relevant to Beef. Team Nancy Drew consists of Beef, Pauseunpause, Guude, and Baj, who formed to investigate a prank on one of the members but I forget who. They're named Nancy Drew after the detective! Team Canada also formed in retaliation to pranks, with it consisting of Beef, Etho, and Pause, the three Canadian members on the server (not including Adlington who moved to Canada but never joined the group). There was also a Team America who pranked them with American flags everywhere. GOB is Guude, OMGChad, and Beef, who played stuff like the Ragecraft, Pantheon, and Monstrosity ctms together but that's way down the line lol

Team Nancy Drew is also notable for inventing UHC. It was Beef's brainchild but it was the four of them who first played it! The first UHC had the four of them working to kill the dragon with no natural regen, with everyone dying but Beef, who "won" the UHC. The second uhc was still dragon focused and iirc is where Beef married the dragon? Memories are hazy but they do kill the dragon in this one I think. UHC was then revamped as a pvp event and became a regular Mindcrack game every few months, featuring most of the Mindcrackers and several special guests, including Dinnerbone, who as we know Thanos-snapped Doc's arm out of existence as a result of Doc killing him in one of them

In one of the seasons of Mindcrack, Beef invited swedish Mindcracker and good friend Anderzel to go caving with him and invented ABBA Rules caving, where the winner takes it all. ABBA Rules is a game where each ore (and also dungeon loot like nametags) is assigned a point value and the person with the most points at the end wins and gets to keep all the stuff collected from the game.

In Mindcrack season 3?, Beef punched the ender dragon in an... awkward area, so when the dragon died and left the egg behind, Guude said Beef was the father of the egg XD I don't remember if I watched s3 so I have no idea if anything Happened with this concept but *history of the world voice* you could make lore out of this!

So Team Canada has played a Lot of CTM maps (which fun fact were pretty much invented by another Mindcrack member, Vechs, with his Super Hostile series! Super Hostile has a bunch of things called "Zistonian", which are references to another Mindcrack member Zisteau, who has a very wild singleplayer series with even wilder lore but I digress). In Ruins of the Mindcrackers, they had a running joke that Beef was Etho and Pause's mom, which is a joke we can leave in the past actually /lh. They also played all the Diversity maps, Sky Factory, Terra Restore, Uncharted Territory uhhh and a couple more ctms and adventure maps! Each map kinda has its own story so in Diversity 3 for example they were trapped in a simulation? I think? Team Canada also recently played the Roguelike Adventures and Dungeons modpack, aka RAD, in which Beef was a wizard with a magic staff that could do anything from summon lightning to control hostile mobs.

Sourceblock SMP is a vanilla survival 1.14 series that ran for one season and the series starts with each of the Players being drawn to a strange sparkling water source that, once they touch it, brings them to the Sourceblock world. It also summons a giant zombie at one point. There's probably more lore for this series but like I said I haven't watched it all the way through yet

He has a Patreon server called VintageCraft and has done a series or two on there as well, and played a few UHCs with them, so lore that how you will!

Beef also played a few popular mods, notably Pixelmon, Life in the Woods, and Feed the Beast, with LitW being singleplayer and the other multiplayer. He's also recently played the Zoo and Wild Animals mod a lot. He did a short series with the Minecraft Comes Alive mod where he married one of the villagers and had two children, so that's canon now :D he’s played a Lot of Pixelmon starting when the mod first came out iirc (he chose Turtwig in his first series and built a Grass gym, then made a Normal gym in another series in uhh 2016) and he still plays to this day. Quite a few Hermits played on his Pixelmon servers with him, like Wels, Etho, Iskall, Stress, Slip, Zueljin, and also Guude and Phedran (a Mindcrack adjacent player and creator of the LitW modpack) and a few Mindcrackers on the older servers

Mindcrack and friends played a lot of other games too- 7 Days to Die, Ark Survival Evolved, Unturned, to name a few, so you can pull a lot of lore out of these as well. Speaking of friends and non-Minecraft games, Beef teamed up with Pause, Keralis, and Slip (a former Hermit) to play the horror game the Forest, which saw them stuck on an island trying to survive against terrifying mutated human... things. They played it a few times as the game updated but as afaik it's the first time Beef played with Keralis and possibly Slip and since the game starts with the Player's airplane crashing, that could totally be how Beef first met them in-universe

I... think? that’s everything I mentioned in the tags? There is probably way more stuff I’ve forgotten that stems from inside jokes and things that happen within each series, but I hope that was a) helpful and b) at least somewhat comprehensible lmao

#hermitcraft #mindcrack #vintagebeef #mcyt #long post #asks #redwinterrises #that was so many words #kudos to anyone who reads the whole thing lmao

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martuzzio · 4 years

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with a craft so big and a crew so relatively small, are there any superstitions or ghost stories about lesser-used areas of the ship?

I’m sure there are tons! There’d definitely be a lot of superstitions and things like that based off of the various cultures we have going on in this group. I’ll definitely need you guys to come up with some of them! Here’s some superstitions and lore for Tango and Beef!

Tango’s nether demon species believes in nature spirits. These spirits represent the natural environment and inhabit things like lava, animals, plants, and metal ores within the ground. This cultural belief in spirits has made the nether demons very aware of their environment and makes them one of the greenest and cleanest species in the universe. Their high-tech civilizations are built in ways that disturb the environment as little as possible and they harvest all of their power from sources like lava waterfalls and geothermal vents without destroying the ecosystem. Their generators produce so much clean energy that they’re able to regularly export the excess power to other nether species. This means that not only are the nether demons the most powerful species in the entire nether dimension, they’re also one of the most well-liked among all sentient nether life.

Because of this cultural belief in nature spirits, Tango genuinely believes there’s some sort of spirit living in the Hermit Craft’s engine bay. He thinks this because the engines get finicky when he’s not around for a while and he sometimes hears weird noises echoing through the cavernous space. What’s actually happening is that the end crystals (which Tango doesn’t know exist - he has no idea what’s actually powering the engines underneath everything else) powering the engines need frequent realignment to run properly (which is their only downfall as a power source). The strange noises he hears are from the metal expanding and contracting in weird ways due to the crystals moving out of alignment and getting too close to one side of the engine core walls. The pinging, groaning, and creaking noises echo through the monstrous engine bay in weird ways and end up sounding like a growling beast. Tango believes that the metal in the engine bay contains a spirit and therefore treats the entire area of the ship with an incredible amount of respect. It’s why he spends so much time down there - the more time he’s there making sure the spirit is happy, the more the spirit will like him and want to protect him and his friends. In a convoluted way, Tango’s obsession with the engine bay and this spirit within the metal is what helps the hermits be the hermits: since the engine is in top condition at all times, the Hermit Craft constantly runs at full potential and lets the crew perform all of the crazy stunts that make them famous.

Beef, to the average person, would seem like he has very peculiar habits about food and food preparation. This is because his planet’s culture is very family and community-focused. On his home planet, preparing, serving, and eating food are extremely important cultural activities that symbolize the bonds between people. This can be seen from something as simple as making breakfast for the family to something as important as two politicians making dinner together as they form deals and treaties. Since most people on Beef’s planet spend a majority of their workday farming or herding alpacas in the mountains, the main meal of the day is dinner, which starts to be prepared as the sun begins to set and is eaten once the sun has set completely. Families convene every day to prepare and eat dinner together. Eating takes well over an hour, as people sit and talk about their days and tell stories to each other while they eat. When they’re done with dinner, a few people from each family go out into the warm night air to give what they didn’t eat to those in need, creating a larger familial unit that encompasses the entire community.

Because of these cultural practices surrounding food, Beef has very strict rules about meal preparation and consumption that he implores the other hermits to follow as best they can. These rules manifest themselves in different ways aboard the Hermit Craft. Firstly, he hates preparing food by himself. He would love to always have someone in the kitchen while he cooks. This usually ends up being either Etho or Doc, since both of them bring produce to the kitchen for dinner anyway, but other people who make common appearances include Bdubs, Wels, Ren, and Keralis. While the whole family usually helps with meal preparation on Beef’s home planet, he’s content with someone simply hanging out with him in the kitchen as he cooks if they’re not feeling up to helping him make dinner. Once dinner is done, Beef’s second rule comes into play - he tries to get as many hermits to the dinner table at the same time, even if they’re not hungry (which usually isn’t the case since they’re used to the meal schedule by now). When everyone is at the table together, it’s easy for people to socialize and unwind after a long day of working on their various tasks. They talk, laugh, and enjoy themselves instead of eating and leaving as quickly as they can. Of course, not everyone can stay as long as others, but they try because it makes Beef happy. Finally, Beef hates the idea of people eating alone. It’s one of the most isolating and mentally distressing things he can think of. If someone is hungry in the middle of the night and wants company, Beef will sit with that hermit and eat something light and small so the hermit isn’t forced to eat by themselves. All of Beef’s personal rules about food have nurtured a positive community among the hermits. They know they can look forward to their daily time where they get to relax, catch up with friends, and eat excellent food.

Space outlaws lore can be seen here.

#asks and answers #space outlaws lore #tangotek #vintagebeef

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jaeyleo · 4 years

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That is!! So cool!!! So, Ethos is in the past and doing tests and stuff on the egos? Very Interesting. What are the other egos like? Or Ethos? I am very very interested for this idea!!

thank you so much!! i’m glad you do!!

lemme just note that @florenceisfalling was a big help in getting some lore and other things set up so big huge kudos to them thank u thank u !!

all six boys are as follows, note, i’m still developing their personalities so they may change later on! this is just so far:

jameson: he/him, straight and asexual. was taken from the 1920s into 2020 to test with the others. he has limited time powers, for example he can rewind one full day, or jump forward one full day. once he jumps forward though he is unable to go back. anyway! he’s pretty serious and just a little bit grumpy most of the time, he doesn’t like it here. jamie is very skilled with knives and guns and fists, and is fascinated by ethos even though at first, he hates their guts. jameson softens up over time, but for the most part hes pretty grumpy and just wants to read his books, and spends a lot of his days missing his own time. very protective of jackie.

chase: he/him, straight (?). the most easy going of the group. very soft spoken and extremely empathetic. he was the first to break through ETH- 05’s coding and get them to show some sort of emotion, and he was a BIG help in getting the others to actually like ethos. chase is always trying to make everyone laugh, keep their hopes up, but internally he is extremely afraid he won’t get to see his wife and child again. he has depression, but ethos makes sure he gets his prescribed medication to make his life at least a LITTLE easier on him. he and henrik are extremely close as they knew each other before they came to the clinic.

henrik: he/him, gay. henrik is ALWAYS trying to take care of the others along w chase, especially after appointments. he often forgets to take care of himself because of this. henrik has a lot of trouble sleeping, often has random panic attacks and has undiagnosed OCD. he is very kind and patient, but he’s always worrying about something. you can find him running around the clinic during the day checking the medication, checking on the egos, etc. if he doesn’t have something to focus on he will get extremely anxious so if he says he’s gonna take ur vitals for the third time today he’s gonna take ur vitals for the third time today.

jackie: he/they, gay. youngest of the group at 19, hes very bubbly and warm and pretty chill! he’s laid back most of the time, but it’s very easy to make him laugh as he kinda has that gen z humor where if u show tbem a picture of a can of beans that’s over saturated and says “B E aNS 👁👁” theyre gonna lose it. same w chase. anyway he has a few powers, he can do a little telekinesis, can (weakly) control water and metal, and is oddly ODDLY lucky. like theyve always got a four leaf clover on them or somethin. hes pretty brave, and is learning how to fight properly from jameson! catch them sparring while henrik goes !!!!!!!!!! when jamie knicks jackie’s cheek with a knife.

marvin: he/him, pansexual. FTM transgender! marvin is kinda the leader of their group, well, except for ethos. he is VERY clever, very quick on his feet, and holds far too many secrets. definitely very mysterious. marvin is very confident and has a soft voice, strong, and enjoys singing little songs ! he has powerful POWERFUL magic, including hypnosis, various spells, he can make plants grow/heal/die, bend light, water, and shadows, and many other things. he’s been studying for a very long time. he also is able to talk to and sense ghosts and other supernatural things ! marvin is by far the most stoic of the group, and although he may seem like a tough guy, he deep down loves the group sssoooo much, and would put his life on the line for all of them. both he, jameson, and jackie all have a second chip inside their skin which prevents them from using their magic unless permitted. if they try to use more than allowed, it will give them an electric shock until they stop. ethos has lowered their restrictions on magic once they complained of it building up, but they still are not really allowed to do much with their magic anymore :/

ethos: he/they/she/it, ethos wasn’t programmed to be a certain gender. and aro/ace, as most robots are in this future as they weren’t made for romantic love! hes kind of a prototype? a new kind of android the future hasn’t tested much on bc they were very eager for the creation of the perfect being. ethos starts out as very quiet and cold, he doesn’t know much about the egos’ personalities so he can’t do much w them. this changes as time goes on. because he wasn’t tested much, he can feel emotions if taught them, this mostly includes observing humans. since his creation hes been very lonely, and taught he is lesser than humans so a lot of times he’ll comfort himself by saying poetry or going through files or something. (thanks flora for giving the idea of ethos just babbling to himself at night when he feels his most sad or lonely!) ethos doesn’t smile or laugh, and when he does it’s either him mimicking one of the boys to make them comfortable or it’s genuine and he smiles for a second and then it goes back to normal. it’s a little odd to look at. anyway he doesn’t enjoy giving appointments, in fact he’ll go against coding once in a while and fake the data so the boys don’t have to suffer. this is bad news for ethos! which i will explain more on later :3 overall hes very sweet and comforting and just wants people to be safe. he loves taking care of people, especially when they’re sick so if one of the boys is sick it’s usually both ethos and henrik fussing over them in their own ways.

sorry this is so long!! also ethos’s is rushed cos i gtg to work but i’ll explain more on this if y’all would like, thank u guys for the interest!

#ethos au #ETH- 05 enjoys sitting in the sun fun fact

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docholligay · 5 years

Text

An unnecessarily lengthy ode to the deadlock disaster children

Decided I had to submit this instead of comment endlessly on your post… because I just love Ashe and McCree so much more than I could have ever predicted?? I would feel about characters from this game?? You already know this but you did ask for reasons, so I’m gonna give them to ya.

I was drawn to Ashe when I first picked up the game because I tend to prefer longer ranged weapons and also because I took one look at her and said ‘i choose you, criminal lesbian.’ I didn’t even watch Reunion for a little while, but I was/still am so into her weapon-focused kit and the challenge that learning to play her even relatively well has posed (I still run out of bullets and boop myself off ledges more than I care to admit). So for Ashe far more than McCree, there’s a gameplay element to her that does actually factor into loving her as a character.

I wanted to play McCree a lot when I first got the game, because cowboy, and because me (the prism of my experience of rural life has affected a lot of what I see in mcCree and is probably a solid chunk of the reason I was able to write him into a character I liked) but his gameplay was just too hard and I didn’t love him like I did Tracer, so there was no reason for me to continue.

Obviously we have very little canon for her, but I love a lot of what we do have. I love that she’s quick to anger and bossy and pretty selfish and quite good at what she does. I love that she clearly cares about McCree even as she isn’t prepared to ever let go of her grudge against him, that’s the kind of tension and conflict that I am always so into, perhaps in part because I have so much experience with it personally. She’s got high expectations of everyone, probably too high, and she prizes loyalty above all else - feels very relatable to me, tbh. I love her aesthetic and her ridiculous voice acting and I really really really love BOB’s mannerisms and general role in her life.

If and when I am ever tempted to do something with Ashe, I think the most interesting thing to work with would be her sort of spoiled brat mentality, and how that hits up against Actual Cowboy Ethos (I utterly, utterly reject the idea of the Deadlock Gang being a biker gang, at least before Ashe took over. I’ts a boring choice made for aesthetics.) The idea of her having conflict with everyone who taught her everything she knows and completely thinking that SHE’S RIGHT really intrigues me.

As far as headcanons/my writing of her goes, though, I feel like I’m trying to flesh her out as a character who experiences a lot of growth, but never ends up much closer to perfect or even to good (because I don’t think she’s good, I don’t really have any interest in redeeming her at all, though I think humanizing her or exploring the ways that she can be relatable is interesting). I think one thing they did really well in introducing her (and some of the others, obviously Fareeha is similar) is that she’s a person who’s had an entire life, a childhood and a young adulthood and is now a grown woman. I find that super helpful in thinking about what particular things make her immature when she’s first meeting McCree and starting the gang, and then how she addresses or doesn’t address those things as she gets older and has to adapt. I also like that she’s a criminal, clearly not a good guy character, but also doesn’t at this point have a direct tie to the Big Bad organization of the franchise - I’ve not shared many of my ideas for where my fic series is going, but I like the idea of her flat out refusing any/all offers from Talon to team up for several reasons. Like having Vishkar and Lumerico and even Volskaya as sort of villainous presences, keeping Deadlock and Talon separate helps the world feel less manichean/more realistic to me, so I actually hope there’s not a move to tie everyone together too neatly.

I also have NO desire to see her team up with Talon except maybe in selling Talon weapons or something. BUt that’s business, not teamwork. I see Ashe as left with basically a name of the Deadlock gang, but without anyone but BOB who REALLY has her corner.

I do wish that the whole 'her parents ignored her entirely’ and 'she’s richer than god’ things had been considered a bit more in relation to one another - it doesn’t make any sense to me at all that her parents would continue to bankroll their at large criminal daughter that they don’t care about at all, for instance. My other major gripe with how she’s been handled is actually about her legendary skins - let her look like herself, Blizzard!! Let her have her white hair and red eyes instead of just blatantly embracing the fact that you made another same face white woman who you will play Barbie with and give her dark hair or blue eyes whenever it’s more convenient. Also make her look her age, damnit.

You’re completely right and all of this is dumb. But I’m not shocked, tbh. LET OLDER WOMEN LOOK IT!!! LET WOMEN BE OLDER!!!

ANYWAY, her origin story and Reunion give me a lot to work with. ESPECIALLY because I’m not at all convinced that Reunion is the first time she and McCree have seen each other since he left the gang, or at least I feel very strongly that it shouldn’t be the first time. There are a lot of things about how they both act that I’ve chosen to read as suggesting this is kind of a recurring thing, he shows up and makes her mad and messes with the gang but neither of them will actually hurt the other, and then she has to go back to acting like he’s her nemesis when really he’s the one person who can make her break her own rules about punishing betrayal. I’ve got no particular investment in Blizzard telling their stories that way, but to me it makes a lot more sense than that confrontation being their first meeting after 20 years.

I haven’t decided what I think about McCree and Ashe’s relationship in specific, only in broad strokes, and I chalk a lot of that up to my general reluctance to engage with Ashe and what Blizzard seems to be trying to do with her. I’ll have to come up with something, if only in passing, but yeah, I dunno.

AND SPEAKING OF MCCREE. He’s so sad, I love him. While I don’t see him joining Talon usually, I definitely agree with you that he just kind of bounces around from group to group and place to place throughout his life, and to me that’s in part because I see him as just kind of taking things as they come at him, but also because he’s so deeply convinced of his own 'badness’ and guilt that, without someone else prompting him like Ashe or Gabe, he’ll just default to running on his own so as not to hurt or disappoint anyone, including himself. But even as he’s convinced that he’s not a truly good man, he still works to do the right thing in the ways he knows how and feels cut out for. And I love that he’s polite, and that he seems largely to be pretty unflappable but is willing to get angry and express that anger when something is important enough to warrant it, and also that he’s a fuckin terrible dresser.

Yeah, I think McCree is a tumbleweed, and he’s always looking for something, and he never really quite finds it, at least not for a long time, Eventually, in the fullness of time, he becomes a sort of officer for Overwatch, in my world, but even there he feels that he is doing a good and useful thing but does he “fit”? Will he ever be settled like Pharah? Loved like Tracer? Who knows! Not him! He’s just a cat dad doing his best.

Idk, I was skeptical of getting into a game that wasn’t first-and-foremost narrative driven, but I’ve found that many of the characters are set up in such a way that even though they’re not fully fleshed out, there’s a lot to work with that’s super interesting and fun to me, so Overwatch has been an incredibly pleasant surprise. I love others, too, but these two appeal directly to my two greatest weaknesses when it comes to fictional characters (bitter lesbian who yells and sweet guy who tries really hard to do the right thing even though he fucks up a lot because the world is complicated), and it’s very fortuitous that they’re actually linked to one another within the lore. If my faves were like, Zen and Reyes, for instance, I don’t think I’d be as jazzed about the franchise as I am. But I lucked out with these two losers, and as always I love the way that you’ve written McCree (can’t wait to see what you do with Ashe) so I’ve gladly incorporated fanon into my thoughts and feelings about him, so it’s kind of just been a perfect storm for me, and now here I am writing excessively long submissions to you about why I love them.

Yeah, I think it works out nicely when you find a character that the franchise loves too. I did not go into Overwatch expecting Tracer to be my favorite, not even remotely. I expected it would be Widowmaker, actually. But Tracer just got me, something about her sense of goodness without naivete, her courage and her brightness. She’s the hero with the strength to get up and still see that corner of blue in the sky. ANd then go shoot a man to keep it.

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terryblount · 5 years

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Cyberpunk 2077’s level designer talks about levels, multiplayer, DLC and more

CD Project Red’s level designer, Max Pears, has recently given an interview, where he talked about the forthcoming RPG. Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the most anticipated video games coming in 2020.

I’m very pleased that CDPR is working on stealth, because… I frigging love stealth. The Witcher games never had any kind of stealth and I understand why. Still, it would be nice if there were some sections where you could sneak your way through. The existence of stealth gives you more options, especially if you are planning a pacifist play-through. For me, it’s all about the stealth takedowns; I adore takedowns and finishers, as long they have cool animations.

I care little for multiplayer in general and I am glad to see they have their priorities straight. The important thing right now is the single-player. So as long they deliver a great single-player experience, I really do not mind the implementation of multiplayer in the future. Of course CDPR has never done multiplayer before and the same goes for shooting mechanics, but as the level designer said “we’re hiring to make sure that we get the right people for the job”. That’s great, staying true in what you know, and hire people for what you don’t.

Now regarding DLC and post-launch support, it seems their plan is to follow the same strategy they used in The Witcher 3. In my opinion it worked great, numerous free DLC with regular updates patches and two lengthy expansions with a reasonable price tag. Especially reasonable compared to other companies. I mean both expansions together, add at least twenty five hours, If you only play the main story. Very few companies make value for money games any more. Sad but true.

Below you can read the a portion of the interview. For the full interview you can visit VGC.

Have fun!

Have you had to change anything in your levels based on playtesting? We imagine different character types might have brought up unexpected results.

I think that has been one of the most interesting parts, watching people play. Whether you’re watching teammates or even playing yourself, you encounter different experiences that the player has. There was definitely constant tweaking and iteration, because in one playtest the player might not even touch certain routes. It’s been interesting to try and highlight which play style can lead you down which path: that’s been one of the most crucial tweaks, making sure that we highlight all the options for the player.

It’s about making sure a certain character doesn’t bypass important areas, but also that they don’t get stuck halfway down a route for example. Maybe you’ve made a Netrunner and then the only way past something is for a strong player. And because it’s a fluid class system and people can mix and match their characters, you constantly give different options to tackle different challenges.

Can you think of any examples of something you’ve had to change based on playtesting?

I’m not sure how much I can say, but there’s definitely been changes where I had to make sure a stealthy route was possible. That was one of the biggest things for me, that if you wanted to play stealthily there was always an option for you. Especially with the game being in first-person, you need to make sure it’s clear that you’ve cleared an enemy or challenge.

You will have to engage with certain characters, but making sure that stealth is a feasible option is something that we’ve been really making sure feels good. But if you do want to go in guns blazing, there’s enough cover and gunplay for that.

Post-launch multiplayer is finally confirmed now after months of R&D. Why was it important to research that before committing?

I can’t say too much on it because it’s still going through its process, but it’s about making sure that multiplayer fits in with the lore of the world and it feels right. It’s about making sure it fits in with who we are as a company as well, because story is so important to us, plus it needs to fit in with how we design and deliver games.

That’s why it was so important to go through the R&D process with it, to make sure that we’re not just throwing something in and that it feels like a CD Projekt Red multiplayer that has our beliefs and design philosophy. We’ve still got work going on and we’re hiring to make sure that we get the right people for the job. The main focus is still single-player right now and we’re making sure that people understand that this world is more than big enough for single-player.

There was a big reaction online to confirmation that the game will focus entirely on the first-person camera. Has CDPR seen that reaction and will it change anything based on it?

I hope people understand that we have thought about this and there is logic to our process. We’ve not just thrown this in randomly: there is a lot of thought that’s gone into it. In last year’s demo you saw the interactive dialogue system, where somebody pulled a gun on your face. I don’t think you would necessarily get that same impact in third-person. It’s moments like that which make it feel like it’s your story and your character.

There are clearly some people who are really strong and passionate about this, but we believe that this is the right choice for this game. Hopefully when people get the chance to experience it for themselves, they’ll understand why we’ve gone in that direction.

The E3 2018 demo featured third-person cut-scenes. Have your existing third-person scenes been changed to first-person?

From my experience, no. But most of the levels I worked on featured cut-scenes in a first-person perspective anyway.

There’s been a big emphasis around the character customisation in the game. Is it difficult to push that kind of feature, while also trying to make an immersive first-person game?

One question we get asked a lot is, ‘why customise your character if you can’t necessarily see it?’ But in real life we choose what we wear because it represents who we are… that’s what it’s about. Having this customisation channels into that ethos that it’s your story; you can customise your character, your guns and it feels like your fantasy within our world. I think it helps to have that feeling, compared to Witcher 3 which was Geralt’s story.

Every demo you’ve held behind closed doors in the past year has asked for feedback. CDPR recently revealed that feedback has led to increased customisation options. Did you take anything else from the feedback?

We take it very seriously. CDPR is a fan-friendly studio and that’s why we do it, because we’re gamers ourselves and there are changes we make because of that. But we’re so engrossed working on the project that we’ve sort of got the blinders on, so getting to hear outside feedback is really important to us. We need to make sure that we’re on the right track. We put a lot of internal pressure on ourselves and we want to make sure that we deliver the best possible game.

These forms were taken in, there were emails sent round to the right people, then we looked at the feedback and decided if we agreed and how we were going to approach it. Maybe stuff would get mentioned multiple times and that would be a big key for us, because that indicates that it’s clearly an issue for players. It’s important: it’s really rare that you get a chance to do this during development.

We were taking feedback as recently as Gamescom, which is really different to E3 and it’s important to listen to different people.

Cyberpunk 2077 will be released in 210 days, 10 hours & 37 minutes.

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bellshazes · 2 years

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As far as Last Life is concerned, I think it’s important to remember that the red lives were wrong and Bdubs was right. Etho wasn’t just abandoning Bdubs or setting him up to die. He legitimately expected Bdubs to pull off the murder and come back to him. Etho did love and care about Bdubs and made a point of saying so. I think that’s kind of nice. The guy who is always ready to make a fool of himself for the benefit of others was truly loved and appreciated in the end.

this is from the notes of that bdubs falling on swords post and, this isn't wrong, but I don't know that the reds were wrong either. bdubs was right - etho loves him! it's evident, and also the last thing etho says in last life is that he loves bdubs.

but words have been written about "I'm so glad you were my partner," the past tense meaning etho knew it was already over. etho being a survivialist (as he ironically later describes himself as to cleo!) and not being 100% sure bdubs would survive the trade of a kill for a life doesn't mean etho doesn't love him, though. it's precisely because they love each other that bdubs is able to die for etho, and that etho believes in him just enough to send him on what appears to be a suicide mission but to qualify "you didn't win it for me either" with "just kidding, love you bdubs!"

I think this is where a hard line between cc! and c! fails, because it is so evident in their first episodes where bdubs and etho say things like, it's been so long, this brings back memories. they are indirectly but absolutely clearly referencing all the times they've been on the same or opposite sides of a death game (UHCs), plus any other SMP they've been on together. in 3L/LL attachments aren't supposed to carry over, but cleo & etho bond over having lost bdubs, and 3L!etho and LL!etho share the continuity of everything else and antagonizing bdubs; the joke is, that etho will kill bdubs if it's funny enough or justified enough (the trial lmao) but none of it matters when you've been friends for a decade and know it's neither your first nor your last chance to fuck around on whatever side of a war. this is maybe true for the majority of 3L/LL members but it's most true for them, because they have the most history and are least likely to discard that cc-knowledge for opposite reasons. (etho's trolling skills let him accompany roleplay, even though he's mildly allergic to it; bdubs lives and dies by bits.)

I think a lot abt how bdubs on two occasions failed to plan long-term bc he over-interpreted the rules or forgot them: when he was red and hanging with mumbo, he was still fixated on killing due to his boogey curse, but he didn't need to then and could have been honest about his need to stay red for one more episode. instead, he gets back to yellow and kills tango anyway. he's always more interested in the short-term, whether that's for RP or short-sighted reasons.

I just think it's way worse if bdubs is genuinely a little stupid and pitiable where etho is concerned, because they're literally not even BFFs but they know they care abt each other and etho KNOWS bdubs would maybe die trying to get back to him and bdubs KNOWS on some level he should play the long con but neither of them are restrained only by the in-series lore and are burdened with knowing that in any world they share they'll have something fun to do together, and it leads them to absolute fucking tragedy! but the tragedy is inconsequential; they'll meet again, next time.

#etho tntbombing the crastle and being bitchy when bdubs doesn't explicitly say he's welcome there #and the bit of etho tntbombing the crastle despite bdubs tone indicating it almost is like.#of COURSE you WOULD have been welcome. but now you're denied salvation in the crastle #bc they love each other enough to not care what happens to them. bc there's always next time. or the last time. idk #sorry. not sorry but. there's probs 5 more paragraphs #just abt cc vs c stuff being great when you want to explore the world but it's so LIMITING #despite the rules they KNOW ONE ANOTHER...................#anyways. laughing crying puking #peter posts #blogging with bdoubleo

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