Gentle Reminder: “bear Witness” Means “learn About What’s Happening, So You Can Talk About It,

slay the prince

Can we talk about how a seriously concerning number of people are drawn to social justice not out of the goodness of their hearts but because there are prevalent circles within the social justice community that actively reward and encourage behavior that is nearly indiscernible from bullying and harassment with reassurance that it's the 'right and just' kind?

If I had a nickel for every time two sciencey guys had a situationship where one of them died and got better, then turned into a Jesus figure and the other had to do a internal battle against loneliness and choose to help the person who had hurt him really badly, and then the world goes bad and the human one has to convince the Jesus figure not to end the world and then they die(?) in the gayest way possible I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice.

All y'all fuckers when you say you ain't gonna vote

"you're the writer, you control how the story goes" no not really. i wrote the first sentence and then my characters said "WE WILL TAKE IT FROM HERE" and promptly swerved into an electrical fence.

I love how literally every version of the Princess could be interpreted as a piece of the Shifting Mound and, no matter how weird our relationship with her gets, it’s still applicable to our relationship with her as a whole.

Smitten and Damsel show how the Long Quiet and the Shifting Mound are star crossed lovers.

Skeptic and Prisoner reflect their inability to escape without working together. They are both Prisoners, even if only one is wearing a shackle.

Hunted and Beast present them both as archaic forces of nature that must change and adapt. As death, Beast is an offensive predator, and as life, Hunted is defensive prey.

Stubborn and Adversary demonstrate that the two gods are true equals in every sense, and that death means nothing to them in the end as long as they have each other.

Cheated and Razor show how conflict is in their nature, and that no matter how much violence the Shifting Mound dishes out, the Long Quiet is always strong enough to stand against her.

Broken and Tower show the contrast of Shifty’s embrace of her godhood vs the internal conflict of the Long Quiet, as well as the desire to embrace her for everything she is regardless of her flaws. Perhaps, in a twisted way, Broken shows an embrace of our godhood as a whole…

Cold and Spectre demonstrate the dynamic set by the Construct: a killer and his victim, as well as showing the true power of the Long Quiet, and showing that, underneath the struggle and conflict, LQ could end this all disturbingly quickly if convinced to.

Paranoid and Nightmare show the fear that infects the dynamic of the two gods, like Paranoid’s fear of the Nightmare and the Nightmare’s fear of sharing her heart, along with the desire to know the other but the inability to do so organically.

Opportunist and Witch, like Stubborn and Adversary, show the equality of their relationship, but rather than one built out of mutual respect, its mutual animosity fostered by the artificial tension of the construct. It’s the opposite of Skeptic and Prisoner, as, rather than realizing they can escape together through mutual trust, they both try to win against the other when it’s not a winning game.

Contrarian and Stranger show the inherent contradictions in the Gods’ natures; like Shifty says, aspects of who they are contradict themselves, and nothing can exist without contrast and change.

Been doing this a lot lately too!

Brb replacing "I should" with "I have the option/opportunity to" in my internal monologue re: beating myself up over shit that needs doing. Let's see if that works.

You know, a Minecraft Movie could have been a literal masterpiece if you had the right mindset to do it, and I'm not joking. I feel like nowadays studios are afraid of being genuine like a teen is afraid of being genuine. If a movie suddenly gets too excited about something, it needs to put it down so it doesn't sound "lame" or "cringe". You cannot be honest, and you cannot show love or absurdity without pointing out that it's stupid because you think OTHERS will believe it's stupid. So please bear with me:

Currently we have only a teaser trailer, it looks bad, it puts itself down, it's afraid of being genuine, it somehow managed to whitewash Steve (again), and I doubt that it will use things like the End Poem or how it feels to play Minecraft for its themes and story. I hope that I'm wrong, but I'm very cynical. So, let's think about it together.

Minecraft Movie. I saw a post suggesting stop-motion animation for it, and, honestly, it feels perfect, just like stylized 3D animation. Live action actors do not work with how Minecraft looks, and that's okay. Let's do an animated movie.

The plot. There's so, so many possibilities, but the beauty of making a Minecraft animated movie is that you won't ever be able to tackle all the possibilities it brings to the table. The community has made so many stories for the game, so we might as well just think of an "official" movie as a homage to the game and its community. We are adapting the way Minecraft feels.

End Poem, one of the most beautiful things I have ever read. Let's take that and put it in the movie, simple as that. You can only find it by defeating the Ender Dragon, so this will be how our movie ends. If we want it to end like this, then the objective of our protagonists must be to defeat the dragon.

Let's have Steve as our protagonist - not a whitewashed version, just Steve with his actual skin color left just the way it is. He'll represent us as players for our hypothetical movie. Have him wake up in an unknown world, not knowing why he's there. Just like how the game was all the way back in 2009, he's alone in a very lonely and foggy world. We follow him trying to look for other people, and then he has to survive his first night. This first part is both whimsical and a bit scary, because that's how many players felt when they first started it when they were kids, aallllll the way back.

Steve survives his first night. He's horrified, and then he realizes that he'll have to do it again. He doesn't know the "rules" of this world, but he's figuring them out, and the idea of "rules" and "what to do" will be important. Because, at its core, Minecraft doesn't have that many rules. It has no actual objective. You can do whatever you want, and this will be very (very) important.

Steve ends up building a small base with wood. Survives a bit more, and then, someway, somehow, he finds Alex. While he's more careful around things and very thoughtful on how and what to build, Alex is more of an adventurer, following the little tidbits of personality we see from them during Minecraft trailers. They're happy to know that they aren't alone, and we follow them build a very strong friendship and teach each other new things, just like how it is playing Minecraft in real life. They find a village, and find out that maybe they can leave this world, or at least find some answers, if they defeat the Ender Dragon.

From there, we have a good objective. The two continue progressing, and their base ends up becoming a castle, because who didn't want to build a castle when they were kids? And the world seems progressively more alive thanks to their interference on it, thanks to them helping the villagers, thanks to them being the players that they are. If you want more conflict, just add the pillagers as well.

Eventually, Steve and Alex have an argument about their points of view. They both want to know what's going on, but their way of doing things are different, and they care a LOT about each other, they're best friends, but who is doing things the "right" way? I don't like the idea of them separating because that happens in way too many movies. I want to see these two stick together, but their insistence on trying to do it "correctly" ends up putting them in a lot of trouble because they can't cooperate anymore. Y'know. How people fight and argue about a "correct" way of playing the game. How we as players miss old Minecraft - or do we? Do we miss the simplicity of older times, or do we miss our childhood creativity and willigness to do whatever comes to mind?

Anyways. A good alternative to this conflict would be either Alex or Steve - I'm leaning more towards Steve - being hesitant at completing the End Portal. He doesn't want to end his "dream", he doesn't want answers or to escape this world (aka leave good memories behind), he wants to stay there, but Alex knows that they can't be like this forever, even if she wants to stay. Regardless, they eventually come to a mutual understanding, and, TOGETHER, they go and fight the Ender Dragon. They win, and then the End Poem happens.

The fight against the dragon wasn't the ending; the realization that there are, indeed, no rules to put them down, or that they HAVE to leave everything behind, is the ending. They hear the poem while sitting next to each other. The world changed because of them, and sometimes it was for the worse, and sometimes it was for the better, but it did become much kinder, and they weren't alone. They don't HAVE to be. Just like how it actually happened in the actual game, through the 15 YEARS since it started to exist, and oh my God it's been 15 years already?! Oh my God-

Anyways. Movie ends with Alex and Steve having a lighthearted argument over what to build next. Steve wants another castle, Alex says that she has amazing ideas for something she's calling a "mob farm", and "trust me, it'll make our lives SO MUCH easier". And they're just being silly, because there are no rules.

Anyways thanks for reading this post, feel free to add your own things to it! Just had to get it out of my chest.