#(1.9

Welcome to Your New Home - Housing 1.9 Update

This guide is to help you enjoy the update as of making this guide. It's a bit long, but it has the basic information on the abilities and tips based on the system. Now if you've been playing, you may not need it, but may have tips to help you consider how to better organize resource and Astralite farming. This is going to be great for anybody new, especially to make sure you have resources for building when you start getting into the Construction ability.

This was a HUGE guide to make, please point out any mistakes!!

Notes: This guide being made asap, here are a few things--

Huey: "Sometimes, the bravest thing an explorer can do is walk away."

They say you can tell a lot about a person from a handshake. You can from a handhold too. The way Ed holds Stede’s hand in 1.9 is tender and beautiful. We can see from the positioning and circumstance that Ed is the one with agency here, and almost certainly initiated the handhold.

However it’s the positioning of Stede’s thumb that bends my mind out of shape. Ed’s whole hand is in natural position. Stede’s thumb should be lying parallel to Ed’s. But Stede has deliberately twisted that thumb up and over Ed’s. Pressing down. There is nothing passive in Stede’s grip here. It’s a symbol of reciprocity, of reassurance. And Ed’s staring right at it. There’s an unspoken promise in that thumb.

We all know what happens next…

Yet they get a do-over in 2.5 as part of their healing process. They kiss for a second time and hold hands for a second time, romantically. The handholding then becomes a thumb-war game. It feels like a tiny callback to the beach handhold in 1.9. It’s a playful power-struggle. A memory. Perhaps an unspoken apology.

It’s fun and it’s beautiful, but no way is Stede’s thumb remaining atop this time. Last time that happened, things did not go to plan. The way Ed cocks his head to the left playfully yet assertively as he ‘wins’ the game reveals a need to feel in control. Stede has already respected Ed’s boundary in this scene and builds Ed’s self-esteem further with this silly little moonlight game. This time things are different.

Sure, it’s improv. But improv doesn’t mean not planned. It just means we have some ideas and we’re going to develop them in the moment. These two guys understand the psychologically of Ed and Stede so well this scene developed organically to its perfect and natural conclusion.

This time, Ed won.