A transparent banner with dark text and a pale, pastel rainbow outline around the text. To the left of the image, there is the avatar of Bewildercraft. They are a masked individual with dark brown hair in a messy undercut and a rainbow scarf that hides the mouth and nose area. The mask is rabbit-like and has golden yellow eyes, looking off to the right without an obvious expression.
The text on the image reads as follows: “Truscum, TERFs, MAPs, anti-antis and other freaks will be hunted for SPORT.”
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we need to reintroduce the concept of a "content play" to mcyt fandom because there are a lot of people unclear on why saying something behind the scenes ≠ actually changing behavior onscreen and why people almost never outright veto onstream bits even if they're uncomfortable
Okay, so: the Content Play is something we first saw demonstrated outright in an old Legundo video -- it's the Game of Thrones scenario,* y'know, pretty much one of the single best ones? Anyway. We're sure the term saw use before as well, but for us this is the first time we saw it acknowledged directly and by name.
* We will be returning to Legundo's run of Scenario SMP a few different times in this essay. It has been a long enough time that we feel its worth as a case study outweighs the risk of offending anyone involved.
The Content Play is based on the following principle: competitive MCYT series have the stated primary goal of "win the game", but the implicit goal is "make a good video". This is important for one reason -- playing a death game optimally is boring. The optimal play is either to slaughter everyone in a single go if you're good at PVP (which, to be fair, does look cool... if you're the person doing the killing), or to simply hunker down like a mole in a branch mine and skitter around the walls until you've reached critical resource mass and everyone has killed each other off, all while never speaking to another person.
Hence, the Content Play -- "telling a story takes precedent over optimal gameplay". This extends past the realm of death games, too -- building competitions, challenge runs, and even just "people hanging out" videos are subject to the whims of the Content Play.
Let's return to Scenario for a bit, though, since it's frequently at its most obvious form in the series. Instead of focusing on the actual namedropping of the term in GoT, though, we'll go back to an earlier one -- Zombie Apocalypse.
Partway through Zombie Apocalypse, everyone's comms light up with the following announcement: Sean/Forge Labs (serial backstabber) has Kim, who has been tormenting everyone the entire Scenario thus far, trapped in a box. He calls out a location and tells people to meet him there if they want revenge.
Legundo, onscreen, says he is torn. On the one hand, Forge backstabs people like he has a quota to meet and he's behind for the month, and Legs has already experienced what that means for him at least twice now. On the other hand, Sean has put him in a very tricky situation from a storytelling perspective -- he alludes to this, but doesn't state it outright.
What Sean is doing here is setting up a situation in which the only story-viable move is to do something incredibly tactically unsound. The "smart" move would be not to play and simply to go find something else to do. Unfortunately, that turns the person denying the content play into the jerk -- there is a story beat that has been set up, and they are saying "no" and walking away for the sake of playing safer.
Legundo has a choice mechanically, but he doesn't have a choice narratively. He has to go see whatever Forge is up to, or he might miss out on an important plot beat for a video that is supposed to be more entertaining than it is supposed to be a candid recording of someone playing on a pseudo-anarchy server. As player, he can do whatever he wants to win the game provided it's within the established ruleset. As storyteller, the stakes are high enough that walking away would be insensitive or even outright rude -- and there is no alternative action that would be as interesting.
Forcing a content play is sometimes bit of a jerk move. People do it all the time, mind, and it is quite tactically advantageous to do so, but it is still a jerk move when done in excess. When someone "forces" a content play, they set up a situation in which the only "right thing to do" from a story perspective is exactly what they want other people to do, and anything else results in a "less compelling" story (or at least seems to do so in the moment).
In addition to innumerable times Forge does this throughout the course of Legundo's Scenario run, we might also consider Scott setting up a narrative arc for his character last-minute in Vampires SMP that seems to make killing him an unsatisfying conclusion, or Grian offering a life debt to Scar in Third Life, or the obstacle course the dead folks set up in the original S6 run of Hermitcraft's Demise, or every single one of Branzy's redstone games during Lifesteal. In less high-stakes situations this can also be as simple as flirting with another person onstream, or Doovid approaching someone with a ridiculous bit, or offering to pay someone with an IOU instead of tangible ingame currency.
And this is where things get tricky -- often, this is not done with intent to be rude. It is done with tactical intent, maybe, but it also might just be someone who's figured out an interesting plot beat they can hit and wants to approach someone with respect to that beat. But everyone in a series or stream group is keeping up the appearance of doing things consistent with their character -- (most) people (allegedly) don't like seeing the exposed artifice of kayfabe built on social convention.
Can you say no to a Doovid bit? Yes, but you've just turned down the ability for your viewers to experience The Doovid Difference. Can you say "hey, stop that" to someone flirting with you in-character? Yes, but you're very abruptly breaking kayfabe in a way nobody will have fun with. Can you walk away from a mutual enemy trapped in a basement? Yes, but you'll never find out what those folks were actually planning. Can you simply not run the deadly obstacle course? Yes, but then your viewers never get to see the deadly obstacle course people put time and effort into creating. Can you not play the obviously deadly murdergame Branzy has created? Yes, but then you don't get to see the obviously deadly murdergame or figure out how he's planning to cheat you this time, the rascal.
The flip-side of this is, of course, that there are ways to set up content play opportunities that aren't forced. In more narrative-driven series, a character might have a planned ending that works regardless of when and if they die, or deliver an ultimatum in such a way that someone attempting to ignore it becomes phenomenally compelling. In more tactically-driven series, you might set up a situation where someone can feasibly make multiple alliances and it's ultimately their choice who to team up with, or offer an obviously bad "deal" to someone where turning it down provides an interesting opportunity for a growing rivalry.
Doovid, despite his earlier mention, is actually very good at leaving people opportunities to do interesting bits in denying him the ability to do a bit. Squiddo's concept of "Squiddo's Law" may seem forced in some cases, but it also provides a failsafe opt-out in that it is equally funny for the ridiculous thing to not happen to an absolutely comedic degree. Scar's "friendship points" and offhanded threats in Third Life make an equally compelling story whether you buy in or refuse to do so.
For many people, this is enough. But sometimes, there are cases where the tactically-minded rush of getting people to do things that help you "win" in one way or another outweighs any guilt over making someone do something they may not want to.
In the second Purge scenario, Forge and Legundo are allied for a time. Legundo, knowing that Sean is probably going to backstab him, pleads his case narratively -- you always do the same thing to me, think about how interesting it'd be if we actually worked together for a change. He is making a counter-bid to the usual content play Scenario people choose of backstabbing Legundo and framing it as "he's playing smart, so I need to do this before he inevitably does it to me."
Sean, predictably, betrays him anyway. There's no tactical reason to keep someone around when you know exactly what they're going to do because they've said it out loud, and the ultimate "interesting story" is about how you win the game you're playing. Legundo is known by many of the Scenario cast members as an intelligent player who plans ahead, someone who plays the game smart. And because the smart thing to do in Scenario, the winning Content Play -- is to betray your friends and allies when it becomes advantageous to do so, Legundo must be a serial betrayer in his own right.
The only winning move against a forced content play is, frequently, to set up a situation in which it is disadvantageous both practically/mechanically and narratively/comedically to force your hand into a bit. Talking these things out behind the scenes only goes so far; people are relying on instinct when they get behind the camera, and fall back on habits they have (whether or not those are good habits at all).
Frequently, these reactions can look drastic with no context: blowing up your own base and/or farms, playing a character that's rougher around the edges or canonically unattractive to most people, locking off the End, retconning one or more major plot beats, ending a series early, lying about being related to someone else.
But, as we've hopefully established, the only way out of an obvious trap is to make it more interesting to avoid that trap than it is to jump into it. And sometimes, in order to do that, you either have to pull something pretty drastic... or live with just walking away and not knowing what happens.
things minecraft desperately needs:
- an End overhaul (for the love of god, the nether got an update 5 years ago and the overworld has been overhauled multiple times)
- a full colour-spectrum set of blocks (the last full spectrum colour block to be added was concrete, in 1.12.2, which was 9 years ago. i was hoping 1.20 would have one, maybe a cool ceramic or chalk type block, but nope.)
- all the missing slabs and stairs (concrete and terracotta primarily)
- all the missing walls (quartz, the other prismarine variants, and personally i think wood walls would be a good addition)
- carpets on stairs
- the ability to change block connection states in vanilla without cheats (like the debug stick, but that requires creative mode)
- an entity pathfinding overhaul (for the love of god)
- SOME kind of backpack. for the love of god.
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if you could add any one SMALL addition to vanilla minecraft, what would it be?
a block — a new wood type, stone variant, wool/concrete color, etc!
a passive mob
a hostile mob
a tool, armor, or weapon type of item
a crop or food related item
a retexture or reskin of a previously existing mob or item
something else! tell me in the tags
i wouldn’t add anything / i don’t play minecraft / show results
Voting ended onSep 4, 2024
this is focusing on something SMALL, so i’m leaving out new biomes, bosses, structures, etc. feel free to go into detail in the notes, i’d love to hear all your ideas!
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Testing out a new style! Sorry the shots are a little crunchy 🫠 this went through about five design changes, originally the roof was all copper and the walls of the house build was cobble and I don’t know what that blue stripe is and I just kind of made stuff up as I went 😅 I will try to add in the blocks used later if I remember to in a separate reblog but there’s a lot of pieces to this so it might be a while!
Tag List ☘️: @gronglegrowth @notafrogblog @xxfallen-hopexx @wjbminecraft @evilest-opossum @the-nightfox-nest @priskeys @weallpartywhenthefuneralends @vampiiric @imflyingfish @adairctedgibbgirl
- its so big. Its so so big. Look at a map of the dsmp. Its just a black void bigger than l'manburg was.
- You look at it and you just know it's something terrible. the obsidian walls, lava, the iron. It's just there. In the middle of the ocean. It does not fit in and its scary.
- the AMOUNT of redstone and functions it go is AMAZING. the only way to enter is through a portal that then leads u to the nether and has to be manually activated again by the warden. So to enter you literally NEED the wardens permission. All the bridges and all the door. It's so fucking cool man what can I say. The amount of security.
- the lore that happened inside pandora as well. Pandoras arc was the best arc of the whole of dream smp and I stand by that. There is so so much to unpack.
Sam and Dream could have just built some shitty obsidian box and called it a prison, but no they made PANDORAS VAULT
The Everdusk Castle
Builder : ToAsgaard
Series : ATM Spellbound Series
Porpaganda : this place is built in another dimension (the Everdusk), it's gigantic (extends about 50ish blocks further down past where i was able to grab a good screencap), and it's fully detailed inside. not in like a "some stuff here and there" or "there are redstone machines" -- every single room is detailed out, often with visuals corresponding to the mod being used, any automated setups are given a ton of visual flair to fit with the theme of the base, there's even automation setups that serve as visual rooms (the Botania automation room uses Kekimuras and is set up as a banquet hall! it's so cool!!). i think about it constantly. ToAsgaard's builds are consistently drop-dead gorgeous (his soulsborne-inspired Celestial Journey/Betweenlands base and gigantic multi-piece Sevtech Ages base are both fantastic) with ridiculously intricate detailing and really cool modded automation setups. his Celestial Journey base, Carcosa was a close second for me -- but its power lies in all that detailing and isn't nearly as screencappable from the outside. Asgaard's an amazing builder both on the megabase and microdetail levels, incredible at standard modded automation and at doing things the fun way. he's been inactive for a few years now but i still adore his stuff, and this seemed like a good way to show off an absolutely spectacular builder that otherwise people might not know about.
need proof the Everdusk Castle is more than just a pretty exterior? boy do i have it for you! (@mcyt-builds-contest and others)
The balcony overlook, featuring an array of Astral Sorcery setups... and a dragon. Asgaard's got a lot of dragons. This one shoots lightning!
Oh yeah and he can fly by the way. That'd be the Ars Magica rituals set up around the base.
How to craft a modpack's ultimate item in style.
Another side angle on the castle exterior.
The kitchen and banquet hall -- Botania automation's really cool, you guys.
One of the lower courtyards. Asgaard's a pretty great terraformer on top of being incredible at megabuilds!
I was not kidding about the castle going down about fifty blocks lower.
Bees.
I really like this room for Mana & Artifice. It's got a cool magitech feel to it.
Custom arena for fighting the Gaia Guardian. Guys I think Asgaard might like Dark Souls, just a theory here.
Demon basement! I really love the Occultism mod when it comes to vibes and Asgaard is able to really make it hit even harder aesthetically.
The blood magic basement is different from the demon basement. Don't confuse the two.
Oh yeah. There's even a prison in this build as well! Might not be built for keeping players in, but...
...It comes preinstalled with a silverfish torture chamber! And also a regular torture chamber.
This is what plant automation looks like if you're an evil wizard.
Anyway, that's my tour of the Everdusk Castle! And I am really only scratching the surface. Have I mentioned this isn't even my favorite build of his yet? Tomorrow I'm getting screencaps of Carcosa for you all.
- its so big. Its so so big. Look at a map of the dsmp. Its just a black void bigger than l'manburg was.
- You look at it and you just know it's something terrible. the obsidian walls, lava, the iron. It's just there. In the middle of the ocean. It does not fit in and its scary.
- the AMOUNT of redstone and functions it go is AMAZING. the only way to enter is through a portal that then leads u to the nether and has to be manually activated again by the warden. So to enter you literally NEED the wardens permission. All the bridges and all the door. It's so fucking cool man what can I say. The amount of security.
- the lore that happened inside pandora as well. Pandoras arc was the best arc of the whole of dream smp and I stand by that. There is so so much to unpack.
Sam and Dream could have just built some shitty obsidian box and called it a prison, but no they made PANDORAS VAULT
The Everdusk Castle
Builder : ToAsgaard
Series : ATM Spellbound Series
Porpaganda : this place is built in another dimension (the Everdusk), it's gigantic (extends about 50ish blocks further down past where i was able to grab a good screencap), and it's fully detailed inside. not in like a "some stuff here and there" or "there are redstone machines" -- every single room is detailed out, often with visuals corresponding to the mod being used, any automated setups are given a ton of visual flair to fit with the theme of the base, there's even automation setups that serve as visual rooms (the Botania automation room uses Kekimuras and is set up as a banquet hall! it's so cool!!). i think about it constantly. ToAsgaard's builds are consistently drop-dead gorgeous (his soulsborne-inspired Celestial Journey/Betweenlands base and gigantic multi-piece Sevtech Ages base are both fantastic) with ridiculously intricate detailing and really cool modded automation setups. his Celestial Journey base, Carcosa was a close second for me -- but its power lies in all that detailing and isn't nearly as screencappable from the outside. Asgaard's an amazing builder both on the megabase and microdetail levels, incredible at standard modded automation and at doing things the fun way. he's been inactive for a few years now but i still adore his stuff, and this seemed like a good way to show off an absolutely spectacular builder that otherwise people might not know about.
EVERDUSK SWEEP! @mcyt-builds-contest and whoever's interested in checking this guy out, here are some series/build tour links!
More about the Everdusk Wizard Castle:
ATM Spellbound playlist
I could not find a base tour episode, but the last few episodes show a lot of the castle detailing while he does final touches!
The episode where the screenshot's from, where he starts roleplaying for approximately 1.5 seconds
He does some WILD automation in this series involving demons and blood magic. Yes, I did say demons, and yes, I did say blood magic. The demons give you 6x ore processing. The blood magic is just really good at routing items around.
More about the Sevtech castle base complex:
Sevtech Ages playlist
Final base tour episode
Has dedicated "sections" for each Sevtech Age! A dedicated Betweenlands area! A castle made out of brick from the final castle in the Twilight Forest (those blocks take FOREVER to mine)!
Builds a bomb to summon an elder god so he can steal its unenchantable sword. Uses a Betweenlands item to cheese it. Has the unenchantable sword for all of a minute before he proceeds to enchant the unenchantable sword.
More about Celestial Journey's Carcosa:
Celestial Journey playlist
Ep25 base tour
Builds/details out the base a lot more in the episodes following the tour!
Like I said, Carcosa's actually my favorite base of his -- Everdusk just screencaps a lot better.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
