Bdubs - Blog Posts
I was doodling to mess around with different designs I have for different hermits, and I had a thought: what if bdubs’s giant anime eyes are actually because he has terrible vision and wears really thick glasses? So I tried to draw that, and then for some reason I added braces, because idk gender-neutral-man, it just felt right. And now he looks. Actually adorable.
I don’t even know if I’m gonna keep this as my design, but he’s just such a cutie, and I get such joy from looking at him, that I felt the need to share.
also thank you to everyone interacting with my real life smp Cleo fanart that is literally my favorite thing I’ve ever drawn so it makes me so happy every time I see it pop up in my notifs. (Special thanks to bluet for the really nice tags, I was having a rough day and so I literally sobbed at that like one of my friends saw my art! lol)
edit: btw the little scribble in the background says “something you can sue, however, is Docm77” and that is an official Bdubs quote from season X that you can take to the bank! I just scribbled it down for unclear reasons and forgot to erase it before posting lol
sketchbooking!!!! Just some doodles ‘n stuff.
These are drawings of: I-fell-victim-to-the-creaking-Etho-propaganda, random drawings of Joel, Bdubs being his wonderful self (I drew the bdubs and the Joels on the same day and was apparently not feeling particularly creative with outfits), wild life Martyn just trying to read the enchanter book while he’s being screamed at by Mr. and Mr. Paranoid in Formal Wear, and a painting of Joel experiencing joy and whimsy that I am *extremely* proud of.
in other news I’m currently playing 3-d chess with the art block demons so post might slow down but on my list of things the should get done and dusted hopefully soon:
My last two pieces for 7 holy nights of Jeremy (I promise I’m working on them guys I just need more time!!)
Some more mtg au art of our favorite kamigawan planeswalkers
a pixel art piece that has been sitting half finished for way too long
a surprise thing that I’m excited for that may or may not happen so don’t take my word for it
more MCR x the life series drawings (I’ve been calling it project Minecraft Romance in my head because My Chemical and Minecraft have the same initials and also it’s really stupid and I crack up every time I think about it)
more traditional art
maybe some writing?????? (Don’t get your hopes up though this is like a maybe maybe maybe)
other stuff I forgot
my Undertale brainrot came back from the dead to punch me in the face again so maybe some stuff about that.
If you guys have any art requests I will happily take them please send me ammunition for my battle with art block!
what if… dnd au but instead of them being heroes and adventures within the dnd universe, they are just a bunch of nerds playing tabletops rpgs together?
like, Tango is the dm who has spent forever crafting the perfect home brew campaign and is determined to make it the most amazing campaign any of them have ever been part of. He’s got the custom maps and characters figures and costumes and voices and one session he even brings in a fog machine for ambience. He’s like the perfect dm to a bunch of perfectly terrible players who will only encourage each others worst dnd habits.
Etho is the one whose been playing dnd since, like, edition 1, and who shows up to the first session of the campaign and starts describing his character and someone’s like “are you playing kakashi from naruto?” And Etho’s like “oh is that who this is? I just found it premade online and thought it sounded cool” and he’s got the emo backstory and looks real cool but is in reality not actually that good of a character and whoever made it horribly messed up the stat distribution but for some reason he always avoids death and it stuck with the underpowered not-kakashi for forever.
Joel is the murder hobo (it’s a dnd term guys trust) who tries to kill everything who also renames all his spells and weapons on dnd beyond to really silly things and then forgets what they were originally and needs someone to translate for him. He will always make sure things get out of hand, accidentally starting cults, making sure the party is always at least mildly morally gray, killing people left and right, aggressively shipping his character with other peoples jus because. He is the embodiment of chaotic neutral. (He says he is chaotic evil in the life series but I think he is more chaotic neutral because chaotic evil will cause chaos for the sake of evil and chaotic neutral will cause evil for the sake of chaos)
Bdubs is the one constantly trying to befriend everything, who also unnecessarily narrates everything he is doing (ex. “I Am RAISING my EYEBROWS at you!!!!”) and he has a million pets and always makes Tango explain what each one is doing at that moment every five seconds and is constantly yelling at Joel for killing everything while Joel is always yelling at him for befriending everything. He will argue that the dice are rigged if he rolls badly and 100% has one of those dice time out chairs and will be extremely superstitious about which dice he uses.
Jimmy is the one who keeps having really great ideas but really terrible luck with the dice rolls, and always manages to stumble into traps. He’s also the only one trying to actually follow the rules and remain completely in character, like everyone’s like “oh it’s probably over here!” And Jimmy’d be like “yeah WE know that but guys our characters wouldn’t!!!!!!!!” And he’s like the perfect player in terms of how nice and easy he makes it for Tango to dm but is terrible at the actual gameplay. He will loudly boast to the enemy that they are about to “get WRECKED, FOOLS!” And pulls out a spell that should kill them instantly if he rolls anything but a nat 1, and guess what he rolls lol.
Scar is the one whose character dies first session and he just picks up a pen, writes “jr” next to the character name, and shouts “I’ve come to avenge my father!” he’d also name his character something like “Hotstuff McSexyman” (if Joel doesn’t take that name first) but actually be surprisingly wholesome and moral, if kinda bad at combat. Extremely oblivious as a player, Tango has to spell out the answer for each puzzle and he will kill an ally genuinely thinking that it’s an enemy.
Grian is the one playing a firmly non-human character who has just the most normal guy core backstory, like “yeah I’m Clarence, I’m 45 with a wife and kids and I’m going on this adventure to celebrate my retirement.” But he’s like a lizard guy or something
Gem is the one who makes a really nice and sweet and normal dnd character and then combat starts and she takes out a magical great sword powerful enough to one shot the BBEG (it stands for big bad evil guy and it’s real dnd term. Gotta love nerd culture) and rolls a nat 20. She is also the only reliably sane one here (Grian goes about managing his sanity like he does shifts at the permit office, and Etho is sane but his character turns out actually to be pretty ineffective at, like, everything so there’s not much he can do except have the privilege of being driven insane rather than already being so. Everyone else is a maniac, some just their characters but not in real life, some are just as crazy “irl” [as in within the au] as their characters)
there is a lot more that could be done with this and a bunch of other people to include these are just the initial thoughts I had.
pov u realize ur mutual had the same idea you did long before u and did it a million times better. Also I think this is the greatest take on Bdubs to ever exist and I’ve actually quoted this daily since I found it several years ago before I became a tumblr-er. He is really down with those kids.
there should be even more roommates aus lol. double life is perfect material really. and besides who better to dye etho's hair than joel "green stripe" smallishbeans himself?
bdubs is the best lol
dandelionnsss! cause i had that one song on repeat.
some fanart I did of the bdouble of O! (Aka bdubs)
This took me three hours. Anyway, I gave him a little flower crown because it just felt right.
I am so incredibly proud of how this turned out I put so much effort into it please validate me and my art.
another wip! I’ve had this idea in my head for years now, but I’ve finally decided to draw it. I haven’t added color yet, and perhaps I will later, or perhaps I won’t, but I’m super proud of what I have so far!
Every time I hear the song Immortals by Fall Out Boy all I can think of is how perfectly it fits Limited Life. This, just the line art, took me three hours, and I was just like “screw this, I’ll post this as it is anyway” because I was bored out of my skull and my brain was melting out my ears. Also, I don’t recommend looking at the tags because there are about three hundred of them because apparently everyone has to have a name, a gamer tag, three nicknames, and their name next to the smp they’re in.
The song (even if this snippet doesn’t include most of the part of the song I’m focusing on here):
You might have heard this song in the movie Big Hero 6!
edit: for some reason it only lets me have a certain amount of tags before it deletes the rest, so I guess everyone will have to settle with just one or two tags per person. Seriously. They have so many different tags that tumblr had to cut me off. Why is this fandom like this!?!!??!!? /j (but still I had to cut down on ALL the tags and it was a pain, and there’s still a bunch even majorly reduced)
I did a watercolor of bdub’s beautiful HC X base!
It’s a little out of date because this took me fffooorrrreeevvveeeerrr to do. I think the top half came out better than the bottom half
Look a Climb 10 grazing in the field! Anyway, shout-out to Bdubs for being an artistic genius. I just translated the art to a different medium. But yeah I started this months ago and only just yesterday finished it.
Theories and Headcannons Pt. 23
So this weekly theory brought by yours truely recovered explores the journey and character development Impulse experiences throughout the multiple iterations of the Life Series. His passage throughout the five (technically six) canonical seasons stretches and continues Impulse's storyline and relationships dedicated to his allies, enemies, teammates and soulmate.
Beginning with Third Life, Impulse was often deemed as the betrayer and an informant for the Crastle against the Red Army. Severing the relationships built between the members of Dogwarts as the supplier and eventually eliminating the final life of an once fellow teammates Etho, during the finall battle of Dogwarts. Poetically, Impulse was slaughtered by his ally, who was offered a clock for loyalty and a guarantee into the finishing three. Finishing fifth, Impulse also seems to be short of conquering the other contestants and becoming victorous; a trend that carries across multiple seasons.
In the subsequent season, Last Life, Impulse joined Southlanders with an astounding total of five members but all the more potential for betrayal. Beginning as the scavanger for the Southlanders, Impulse was able to steal sugarcane from the Scottage and other bases thus disrupting the other teams' potential for a sugarcane monopoly. The tranquility between his team is soon lost in the later sessions where Mumbo proceeds to sabotage Impulse whilst visiting his ghast farm resulting in his yellow life lost and implosion of the Southlanders shortly after. Even with his band of brahathers, betrayal still lingered with Impulse and even with his teammates of his. The soulbounded otherwise known as the Canary's Miner (Mumbo).
The following season Double Life, bonded the participants into groups of two resulting in their health bar being shared across all the sessions. Impulse's randomised pairing was ironically with Bdubs, the trusted who backstabbed the betrayer. Past history aside, both contestants were the first soulbound to find each other establishing the bond and trust between them and managed to secure third place in the final battle against the Divorce Quartet.
The trails of betrayal still continue through Limited Life where in the stand-off between the final three opponments including Scott and Martyn and all three decided to find the victor with an equal solution. Instead, Martyn overcome by the bloodlust of time, first burnt Scott and then annihilated Impulse with his sword before he could recover from the shock of the broken treaty.
The subsequent and current (canon) season of the Life Series, Secret Life was the turnaround for Impulse's continuous promblem of betrayal plaguing him and his allies. Teaming with Gem and Scott, he was able to devote himself and keep a strong alliance that sustained his trust and their trust in him. This trust strengthened over the season until near the end of the season where both him and Scott sacrificed their yellow-life status to lengthen Gem's health.
Throughout the entirety of the Life Series, Impulse had been burdened by the trail of betrayal leeching onto him, his teammates and allies until it was finally gone. Slowly degenerating over the course of the following installments. His story and character development once etched with betrayal now only retain the tragedies of his doomed attempts to become an established victor.
Theories and Headcannons Pt. 22
So new week, new theory about Doc's new poker game and the hermits decided to be used as the monarchs and joker for each type of deck. Innovated from the French-suited playing cards, Doc's poker deck has four suits, diamonds, hearts, clubs and spades, and each suiting having three court cards, King, Queen and Jack. This results in only twelve available spaces considering one hermit takes one court card each and leaves fifteen hermits unable to be represented by the cards. Nethertheless even with the limited representation of the hermits, each cards has its depth and lore.
Starting with the suit of diamond, has Doc representing its King, Gem representing its Queen and Scar representing its Jack. As diamonds is represented as a valuable material considering its bartering and trading value in Hermitcraft, being the main currency for shops, it's reasonable that Doc would be the face of Kings of Diamonds. Gem's reasoning is also obvious due to her talent considering both PVP and her building skills. Finally Scar, being the Jack of Diamonds is poetic due to his bartering (scamming) skills built from his charisma to trade for "diamond" tiered items with common items.
The court of Hearts is a different story considering its representatives are Rendog for the King, Falsesymmetry for the Queen and Bdubs as its Jack. With the symbol of Hearts often depicted as red and hearts in general epitomising the living flesh of a person, Ren as the King is perfect. As RentheKing in Hermitcraft Season Nine and the Red King back in Third Life, Ren deserves the position of King of Hearts. Second to the King of Hearts, is Falsesymmetry, the winner of Season's 10 demise. With hearts also depicting the life and soul of a person, it's also fitting for the winner to recieve the mantle of Queen of Hearts. The final court of Jacks is Bdubs, who in Season Nine of Hermitcraft was the assistant or right-hand man to RentheKing. Resulting in his title of the rank below the King, Jacks of Hearts.
With the court of Spades, majority of its court was already explained by Doc in his previous Hermitcraft 10 episode, (29) with the Jack of Spades being Mumbo, a spoon, Etho being definitively cool and the suit of Spades being objectively cool (in Doc's perspective), and Pearl fitting the role of Queen of Spades. But the reasonings run deeper than this besides Mumbo's spoon reasoning. Take Pearl, the Queen of Spades. Back in Season Nine, she was the Cleaning Lady, taking on jobs of cleaning chestmonsters and other messes with a price. Spades is often linked with the concept of cleaning so it was natural to pick Pearl. The final court card, Kings of Spades, is given to Etho and rightfully so because of his connections to Shade-E-E. Originally Shade-E-E was a "subscription service" and later evolved to a "gardening service" which entailed him using dirt and other blocks to create pixel artworks for the other hermits in saeson seven. And what else is connected to dirt, spades, hence the King of Spades being Ethoslab.
The final suit, Clubs, consist of King of Clubs being Xisumavoid, Queen of Clubs being ZombieCleo and Jack of Clubs being Grian. Although the listed hermits' connections to the suit of Clubs may be vague, there is a connection hidden between the layers of history the deck of cards retains. With majority depictions of a deck of cards using French-suited playing cards, other versions of the standard 52-card deck is found throughout multiple continents with German depications of the Club being an acorn. Acorns also being a symbol of strength and resilience, a trait Xisuma has constantly demonstrated throughout the decade Hermitcraft has been running. Cleo's connections of the suit of Clubs includes her role as an enforcing monarchy, the Queen, with a royal baton otherwise known as a sceptre being a symbol of royalty. Finally, Grian's relation to the Club are the multiple depictions of the suit of Clubs being of a plant. Plants and weeds like the clover and acorns are all edible to a range of bird species, both domestic and wild and with the fandom's collective decision to represent Grian has a human with avian features, it's his connections to birds that create his relationship with the Jack of Clubs.
These twelve court cards all with their representative hermits all have depth and lore leading their portrayal as the monarchs and Jacks of each suit.
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So this theory is finally here and I hope it made up for the multiple weeks without theories. Still have to cope with exams but soon I will be free from these shackles.
Aight ranting time, can we appreciate how revolutionary Double Life was for the Life Series fandom.
The introduction of the soulbound mechanic introduced another potential method to interact and collaborate with different members of the community. In the previous canon Life Seires, most alliances were built of the members previously collaborating or being close friends (for majority of alliances, and this is not discounting that all the participants of the Life Series weren't already friends), but with the randomized pairing of Double Life, it forced new collaborations and interactions. Resulting in the mechanic transferring into the fandom's version of their Double Life, Woven Life.
Involving dozens of participants from authors, artists and animators such as rusty_courage, cherrifire, xmaruu, kitsuneisi, mudboowl etc.
(Non RPF)
But what stirred up the fandom into an absolute frenzy was the shipping potential of Double Life. We had Box Boys (Ren and BigB), the Homewreckers (Bdubs and Impulse) which were previously a ship in Hermitcraft and the Divorce Quartet (Pearl, Martyn, Scott and Cleo) which were pretty substanial new pairs but don't scale to the sheer amount of popularity the subsequent pairing recieved/s.
We got Scarlet Pearl which is not a ship but a fan favourite persona with her pairing with Tilly.
We got Boat Boys which are Joel and Etho which was a due no one initially expected but blew up to the fascinating dynamic they had.
Then we got Desert Duo again after the escapades of Third Life which produced lore upon lore of angst and tension which further fueled the shipping train for Scarian.
And finally we got the Ranchers, Team Ranchers or Rancher Duo consisting of Tango and Jimmy. Another pair the fandom did not expect but are instantly attached to. The amount of potential and ideas from this duo grew in number from their light-hearted dynamic to the angsty moments in the subsequent sessions was intense. Lore-wise, their pairings were eventually reunited during the Hermits x Empires Crossover in Season 9.
So basically Double Life was big for the Life Series fandom.
THEORIES NUMBER 10
So this theory completely unrealted to the Watchers, but is about the relationship between Bdubs and Scar (GTWS) specifically an invisble bondage otherwise known as a soul-link or soul-bound between them.
Take Season 7. When Scar was elected mayor over the Shopping District, Bdubs by himself, volunteered to be the assistant of Scar. Thus establishing the soul-link bond. And during his mayoral leadership, Bdubs was there supporting Scar during the Mycelium War and other events. Strengthing the already established bond.
And then there's Season 9 with the infamous RenTheKing council which included Scar as the hitman of sorts and Bdubs as the assistant to Ren along with the other members of Cubfan and Cleo. So more soul-link and bondage moments which reinforce the theory that Bdubs and Scar may have a soul-link forged way before the events of the Life Series.
So I guess soulmates be bromates.