no you dont get it... shadow the hedgehog was literally used over and over by people he should be able to trust to further their own selfish desires but despite this he was made in the name of love and always manages to find himself and do whats right for both the sake of the people he cares about and the sake of himself...... hes literally the dark guardian angel of the world
Hmmm. As a sentient swarm of keese, I find news of sudden inexplicable monster death deeply disturbing.
Sorry for going missing without a trace guys, I got eaten by a frox on my last delivery run. It was not a pleasant experience.
Glory to Master Kohga.
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.
really helpful technique ^ once you know how to divide by halves and thirds it makes drawing evenly spaced things in perspective waaay easier:
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there is something horrifically grim to it, but illustrations for gaza and palestinians tend to catch more mass attention that actual photos of people. this made me feel incredibly helpless for a long while, seeing both how people would rather look at a neat drawing of red black green and white than look a human in the eyes, and how online platforms would rather push a viral drawing while suppressing those begging for help at the same time.
a way to cope with this feeling has been taking advantage of it to directly guide people to helping palestinians.
if art gets better traction, then there’s an incredible amount of good that can be done by creating art that immediately links to fundraisers. creating art of the many images of those who are asking for help.
within hours of posting my drawing, there has been jumps in the thousands for bashar from gaza’s fundraiser. it’s a small effort in the grand scheme of things. it’s not a fix it. but it’s something good. please take care of each other and do what you can. i think this could help a lot of people if a lot of people did it.
here is bashar. i’ve drawn him, spoken to him, and known him now for a few months. any shares help, any art helps. draw who you see, draw what you see. thanks all
I need to know the server
Felt you guys should know but Witch playing the French horn left an impact on my discord server so great that she's become our most used emote in like a week
(we called her 'bwaah')
hell yeah
one of the best ways i’ve found to combat that inherent depressive pessimism without veering into toxic positivity territory is simply the phrase “i’m open to the possibility”
this particularly works with anything negative i’ve forecasted. “i woke up feeling like shit today, so my day is gonna suck” isn’t a particularly helpful thought, but “it’s a great day to be alive!!!!!” feels hollow and insincere when i have a pounding headache & am running on three hours of sleep
instead i’ll tell myself, “i really don’t feel good right now, but i’m open to the possibility that coffee and breakfast might perk me up a bit.” or “i’m in a lot of pain today, but i’m open to the possibility that my workday might still have fun parts despite that”
sometimes, when your impulse is to slam the door on anything good, but you’re not exactly up to going out & hunting it down yourself, leaving the door open just a crack makes all the difference