I have no idea what sparked it, but I just got a wave of orders recently - many revisits, some unfamiliar names. I haven't had anything new to put out lately (and I've already shown off the cool masks in Reclamation for Mask Monday) which has been a total bummer, but it's real nice to know people are still interested.

@cinnamontoastcroonch I hope you're happy.

I've been taking a critical eye to every episode of Minecraft Diaries as I rewatch it. And I mean writing upwards of entire essays about single episodes. As you saw with episode 65. Part of why I've been doing this is to see where things truly went wrong with this show. The early episodes were better than I remembered, but I know for a fact there was an entire falling apart that happened between the utter quality that is an episode like say episode 58, and well... Season 3.

Obviously episode 65 was the turning point, but that was just the inciting incident. All the problems in MCD ultimately come down to the love triangle and how poorly it was handled. And the next major step was in episode 77. Episode 77 is an episode that is mostly spent on minimal character interactions at the wolf tribe after the gang finally gets back there with Logan and everyone else. Aphmau spends most of the episode building a boat, and then getting distracted from building her boat.

Until she decides to go check on the Nether Portal. It's broken, like when she last saw it, but Laurance is standing in front of it. I need to emphasize something. Up until this point, we've gotten very few conversations where Laurance brings up being a Shadow Knight. He usually diverts these conversations, or they get diverted by others, so we've gotten very few personal insights into a Shadow Knights existence. This is one of the first real times that we get a deeper look at how this condition has effected Laurance.

And y'know what? I'm just gonna give you a quote from my video essay on this. A nice little teaser. As a treat :)

His mind has sort of been rewired to put himself before others, even if he’s naturally a very selfless person. Which is a real slap in the face when you remember most Shadow Knights are guards, who are encouraged to be selfless. His heart still loves dearly and he is still the same selfless fool who threw his life away to save Aphmau, but his mind is telling him to be more selfish, take what he wants without regard for others. Laurance is actively fighting these thoughts all the time, but he worries that one day he might give in and… He says he never wants his heart to forget Aphmau, even if his mind tells him otherwise.

This. This hurts me. It's quality Laurance content. It's a great moment of Laurance proving one of his greatest strengths and weaknesses. How emotionally vulnerable he is. It makes him easy to hurt. It means he'll actually express it. He's struggled to talk about being a Shadow Knight, but now he's able to.

Imagine if episode 65 let him see the fear of killing Aphmau before this.

And just as Laurance says that absolutely heartbreaking line, GUESS WHO HAS TO MOSEY HIS SORRY ASS INTO THE ROOM?! Garroth just waltzs in there and interrupts this incredibly private conversation that he just happened to be listening to. Now, I will say, there is a way to justify this that I will accept, but I know without a doubt the writers didn't intend this.

The only way this works is if Garroth is listening to this conversation because he's scared of leaving Aph and Laurance alone in case Laurance decides to just... Kill her. But then he feels bad. But that would probably make him walk away out of guilt.

So yeah this doesn't make sense. For Garroth. At all. Why is he so scared of Laurance and Aphmau literally having one conversation? Well, it's the answer it always is. The love triangle. They've shown before that they are willing to disregard basic logic, only to prove that they know the details of this logic in a later episode. In Episode 65 they disregard Garroth's fears around his family, and then center an entire conversation around it in Episode 68.

But wait, it gets worse. Because Garroth knows for a fact that Aphmau and Laurance having an emotional conversation won't likely lead to any romance.

BECAUSE HE SAW LAURANCE CONFESS TO APHMAU 24 EPISODES AGO AND SAW HER REJECT HIM!!

There were seven weeks in between these episodes!! Idk how long it takes to make an episode of MCD, but I imagine episodes are written in major arcs at a time. How did they forget what happened IN THE LAST MAJOR ARC OF THE SHOW?! Because. Love triangle. Because Jesson don't care about the characters they previously wrote, they care about these characters fulfilling an already existing trope they liked in something before. They don't care how this dynamic might change because of their own characters, just that they go through the motions.

So Garroth interrupts this conversation. Laurance gets snippy and tells Garroth to fess up or else he might "sweep her off her feet first." And that's a red flag for Laurance. Good job writers. And let's be clear, I don't disagree with characters maybe being shitty, as long as it doesn't contradict previous characterization. Like this does.

The writers forgot that Garroth saw Laurance's confession. They forgot that Laurance took rejection on the chin. They forgot that Laurance literally said "I'm just happy to be in your life." Did they forget about Laurance's entire confession?! Do the writers think that went away when he stopped being blind?!

...

Oh fuck... Did... Did Laurance only accept rejection because he didn't think he was good enough to be with her when he was blind? Is that what they're trying to say? I... I really hope that isn't. And yet I wouldn't be surprised. Just completely and utterly disappointed.

We hope everyone had fun! We definitely enjoyed hosting the event and seeing what everyone did! Mood boards, short stories, art, gardens, fashion, music--I think we did a great job visualizing how we can Solarpunk today and into the future! Let us know what you thought about the event--things you liked, things you think we can do differently, etc. We'd love to hear feedback!

Speaking of the future, what's gonna happen with the blog now? We have some plans and ideas.

First and foremost, we want to keep this blog as a source of aesthetic inspiration for the solarpunk community! So we'll continue running our queue of posts--just at a slower rate than we had been (say, 2 posts a day instead of the current 5). So keep following if you want bursts of inspiration!

Finally, if everything goes according to plan,

This will NOT be the last Solarpunk Aesthetic Week event!

But we'd like to hear from the community how often you want the event to take place! We think it'd be fun to have one for Winter Solstice (which would be Summer Solstice in the Southern hemisphere), but if you would prefer this be an annual/once a year event (so only Summer Solstice/Winter Solstice in the Southern hemisphere) let us know!

Finally, if we missed a post you made for Solarpunk Aesthetic Week, feel free to send it to one of the mods (@fennopunk, @solarpunkani, or @modern-solarpunk) so we can reblog it here! There's been a handful of times that someone's post hasn't shown up under the tag, and we'd hate for us and the rest of the community to miss out on what you did!

It's a queer space horror, where the protagonist is unnamed and undescribed. You the reader, are the protagonist.

It will have a lot of Greek mythos influence in the subtext. The protagonist will also have some autistic personality traits or behaviors, as I never see any books portraying autism the way I have experienced it. I intend for the book to be enjoyable by all types of people interested in lgbtq, space, or horror.

Hi everyone, Mod Puggo here. It's the second week of the Babygirl Polls and I've gotten a few suggestions about what to change about how the polls go, so I've decided to put them all into a bunch of different poll posts (I can't add multiple polls to one post which is honestly kinda dumb) for everyone's opinions to be heard