#aniisolwrites

the respawn anchor drags your dead and burning body through the hellscape you've sent it to and stabs it through with lightning until you're up and feeling considerably worse than how you did at death. the box will spark and hiss and scream at you to feed it again, or you won't be making it back the next time you're pitched into molten lava.

"i am kind," the universe says. "so i provided you with a world that you could've easily chosen to remain in. player, you cannot sleep here. you forfeited your right to a bed by leaving the confines of my great kindness. if all that you seek is within you, you can do without me."

[Player was killed by Intentional Game Design]

The players that were only visible to a select few people? Lore. Essentially the only people who could see Martyn were Cleo and Ren, his DL soulmate and longtime teammate. Etho could be seen by Tango and Impulse but not by Martyn. Jimmy was invisible to Impulse but not to Scott, his husband. The players create ties with friends and allies, the ones the Watchers use to track them and influence the games. The ties soulmates used in DL were just a forced form of the same link. Due to how glitchy the server was, the only people privy to your whole form were the ones you'd tied yourself to. Lore.

The splitting and warping of the border around some peoples' bases? Lore. It warped around Ren, the only player who had "escaped" the games before in Limited and Secret life. The biggest warp was around Grian, the only previous Watcher. Lore.

The apparitions of player models in the sky? Lore. Everyone remembers "the ghosts are calling for a fight." The world glitched and it remembered, too.

He set himself up for inevitable failure by holding Martyn so closely out of fear of losing him, not bothering to make other solid allies or build up a place of his own. He was left scrambling for friends when Martyn died, and had to jump back and forth between the people who would take him. He wanted desperately to live, like the rest of the players, but he could only feel like it was worth it to do so with Martyn, so he held onto any part of him he could.

He had always been promising himself a next-time. He fell to an arrow and he wasn’t going to make it to Martyn, but there would be a next time. He was running through the woods, trying to find him, but he was already dead. There would be a next time. He was destined from the start to be apart from him, but what if there was a–

There would be no second chance. The game had gone on without him, changed and grown in size and intensity. He didn’t know what Martyn had done to win, but there was a kind of danger to the way he regarded Ren now, as if he had been the catalyst to some horrible thing. Like proximity, or lack thereof, made Martyn a weapon, and he wouldn’t let himself risk the closeness again. 

Didn’t he understand? That the closeness was precious? That their time was delicious? Didn’t he get it?

Ren couldn’t bear to lose him again. He gathered every part of him he had left, his backup gear and unused tools and parts of his face, the shape of his hands, the color of his hair. Martyn wouldn’t be gone until Ren let him be. Martyn could stay with him forever, as close as skin was to bone. 

Didn't he get it?

Anyway, I just think you’re super amazing!!!!!

anon YOU'RE SUPER AMAZING!! I'm always astounded by how many people love the way I see that world. Minecraft is a narrative with so much potential and this is a community with so much kindness.

The beauty of Minecraft is that it's just like real life. You're right, anon: it's a tragic world. We will be hurt, we will lose everything we have, and we will fight monsters we aren't able to stop. But Minecraft has another key similarity to our lives in that we can keep going.

Most of us won't wield swords or battle dragons, but we will learn how to persevere, and every time we get knocked down we get a little stronger, a little smarter, a little more experienced. If you stick it out long enough, you'll be able to pick out all the beautiful things you missed before. If you stay around long enough you'll read the poem, and the universe will let you know you are loved, you are loved, you are loved. If you stay around long enough you'll find your place and meet friends and be okay and the universe will let you know you are loved, you are loved, you are loved.

The game is about being human, about being alive.

Sometimes the universe will tell you it loves you through the shuffling leaves of the summer trees. Sometimes by the light that fell from the crisp night sky of winter, and sometimes zeros and ones, through the electricity of the world, through the scrolling words on a screen at the end of a dream.

this site loves (and for good reason) the quote "it's rotten work. but not to me, not if it's you." it's a beautiful thing, that a task you'd hate becomes tolerable because of the kindness you hold. the task isn't any less rotten, but you'll do it if it's them.

there's many reasons you might do the rotten work– moral obligation, selfish debt, fear of repercussions– but those won't make the task any less rotten. the only way you can overcome that rottenness is through your intent.

hatred and kindness were never opposites. hatred is an absence of love, but kindness isn't necessarily an abundance of love. in fact, it's defined as acts of intentional benevolence. hatred is a state and kindness is an action. hatred sits and rots, kindness moves. only one is changing things.

you'll hate rotten work. you'll hate making calls and traveling long distances and cutting onions. but you'll do it, because it's them. you'll remember the voice over the receiver instead of the fear of picking up the phone, you'll remember the strength of the hug instead of the the hours of travel, and in a few years you won't remember what you cooked at all, but you'll remember who you cooked it for.

My personal head canon is that they have superior regenerative abilities to deal with no sleeping allowed and the lava everywhere.

Also I really like your pieces on Minecraft mechanics viewed as if they were real things.

We become products of what we've grown up upon. It's as if the very soil on which we stand rises up through the soles of our feet and becomes a part of us. The dark loam made your ancestors farmers gave your your strong hands and brow. The wet sand made your family fisherpeople gave you your tan skin and long legs. How we survive is also how we're made beautiful, and made ourselves.

It was the land that made these beings, the ones with wrath as red as fire and skin that withstands the heat of the sun they were born in. They grew up in this land like their fathers and their fathers did, and they learned to create as well as the rest of us in the land that they were given. The land is kind to them because they're meant for it.

In the same way the loam would not provide for the fisher and the sand not for the famer, the nether does not provide for us. We cannot sleep there. We cannot dream.

Does that make it evil? Or just different from what we need?

The nether is hell. But it is only hell for us.