Mimcraf :]

For example, the Beacon has obvious utility for the player, but in the story, it seems much more like it would be built as a signal to others.

It is made more eerie by the fact that the creatures he encounters are misshapen mirrors of a human form. The villagers are clearly evolved either from humans or a human-like ancestor, but are not themselves human. Drowned and Zombies perhaps were once human, but unlike zombie villagers, it seems that they cannot be cured. (Maybe he will find a way. Maybe, maybe.)

The Endermen are peaceful when respected, if unnerving. They used to frighten him, but he has been alone for so long; the empty horizon that once held hope has become so unwelcoming that the garbled syllables of these flitting black figures are almost a comfort. He talks back to them, seeing patterns in the handful of noises they repeat that aren’t there.

He has followed the clues left in the ruins, piecing together doors to the hellish, inhospitable realms the previous inhabitants of this world must have tried to escape to, and encountered incomprehensible beings. He has discovered weapons and ancient texts imbued with magic and learned to replicate it.

It has been so long. He has traveled so far, from the harsh, unforgiving lands of the desert, over mountains and into sticky jungles, and there is never a new clue, a new signal, something, anything left that might indicate that there are survivors.

So what would he think, if he saw someone appear, standing in the doorway of the fortress he has built over the years, someone human? Someone else, after so long spent searching? After so long spent knowing, deep, deep down, that there is no one else left?

What is more likely? That he would think this is a surviving human, incomprehensibly, after all this time?

Or that this is yet another being, in a world of magic and strange power, that once was human, or is trying to be human, or is not quite human, that is just

Early minecraft is… lonely. Frankly all solo versions of the game are, even many updates later, but early on far more so. There’s an emptiness to this world that the soundtrack speaks to perfectly, and much as this frees you to build and structure the world as much as you want it also creates a sense of profound isolation. I really think that’s where the creepypasta of Herobrine came from, in part- the reflex to look for other people the same way an eye in total darkness begins to imagine shapes and movement purely of the sense there has to be something there.

But this pliant, forsaken world of the early updates grows and changes. And as it grows, it becomes less and less unwise to our intrusion. To evoke the gripping language of Kitty Horrorshow’s Anatomy, there is a distinction between dissection and vivisection, and as the world of Minecraft is developed further we pitch deeper and deeper into the latter.

There was a time you could walk into the blank oceans of this world and be untroubled by anything- swim or boat for miles or even just lurk shy of shore and no monster could reach you. No longer.

There was a time when the Nether was a blasted, vacant wasteland of a single biome occupied with a handful of strange creatures but most of all the mindless husks of a people we had no sign of survivors from. No longer.

There was a time the villagers were helpless but for their golem guardians and every living person you encountered was no threat at all; no longer.

And now, with the deep dark update, the ultimate takeaway is that even the bleakest part of the world, the fine line of bedrock between world and true void- is becoming hungry, becoming awake.

These things are not entirely good news for us; it means more adversity, if more opportunity as well. But can we truly call that evil? Life is returning- or maybe even moving into where it never was.

I have heard there is a new form of developing fungus that teaches itself how to eat radiation; perhaps, too, the reign of microplastics will only last so long as the world finds out how to sharpen a tooth against it.

#Buildtober 2021 is back for 31 days of Minecraft building prompts for the entire month of October! In its second year, we’re supporting a good cause alongside the fun! 🧡🍂 Stream, post, and support builds using #buildtober or #buildtober2021 on social media, alongside this campaign link! 

tiltify.com/@blisschen/buildtober-2021

Here is a collection of bed designs I use