okay folks, this is going to be a long one, but it’s been on my mind. let’s get started with

The Source Material

You will virtually never run out of content, even now that it’s ended. You have 30 streamers who each streamed for god knows how long each day during its height and a massive amount of content from the same creators outside of the SMP itself. A lot of this content isn’t canon compliant, of course, but it scratches that same itch.

As for canon content, you still have that massive well to draw from. You know each perspective will be interesting, leading to my next point:

Everyone was their own main character.

Yes, it is pretty unanimously decided that Tommy was the main character of the SMP, but every single streamer had their own character that was most important in their minds. Therefore, they included nuance, interesting storylines, and cool narratives in EVERY CHARACTER. Each streamer interacted with different people and wanted their character to have distinct relationships with each member of the server, and therefore the web of relationships is incredibly complicated and nuanced.

The amount of character dynamics and character arcs is incredible, and there’s always something to explore with different combinations of characters at different points in the story. You can find a deeply complicated and unique character within every member.

Because of the improv nature of the server, it also helped prevent characters from becoming caricatures. Very often in planned and structured stories, people can fall into stereotypes when writing a character. However, the way that streamers had to adapt to their environment introduced a level of real character development that allowed for a much more interesting character. They could not structure their character to follow a trope, and instead had to adapt like a real person would to situations, making their characters all the more realistic.

All of these, along with the sheer amount of time we had on our hands in 2020 led to the second section of the fandom:

Fan Content

Because of the pandemic, people had far too much time to dedicate to this fandom. There is a more wide range of fan content in the DSMP fandom than I have ever seen in my life, something that I hoped would be recreated for the QSMP but clearly couldn’t because of the state of the world at that time.

Fan songs, animations, fanfiction, cosplays, and fanart are all 5 times more than you could even begin to guess. Any trope, medium, or idea you could have has been explored by incredibly talented artists, and it made navigating the fandom (even today, as a seasoned fan) an exciting experience. The amount of creativity that people exhibited is frankly inspiring, and I wouldn’t be nearly the artist I am today without seeing all of that content.

It also certainly helped that the creators of the thing you adored so much were such big supporters of the fan content. You often would see them react to animations or songs on stream, leave kind comments, or repost your art. This was so apparent in one of the biggest fan content creators, SADist, who was frequently mentioned IN LORE STREAMS because they had such a big impact on the creators.

The creators cared about their fans and their fan’s experiences and deeply appreciated the fact that people loved their content enough to make art for it, and everyone could feel that love.

From simply a character design perspective, the fact that the character designs were so simple (minecraft skins) left so much room for people to be insanely creative about designs while still keeping true to the character. seeing so many interpretations of the characters and how people changed their designs throughout the story was so interesting, and made fan content not get repetitive or boring.

The base of minecraft gave a great jumping point for world building and environments, while also allowing for lots of insanely cool expansion and exploration from artists. Using the mobs, items, and builds in the server once again made fan content connected and recognizable but also gave artists room to make a world and interpretation of their own, and made the world a lot more interesting and deep than if it was created with everything in mind from the beginning. Finding ways to include seemingly silly minecraft mechanics into your fantasy world allowed for really cool world building.

Even now, I cannot stop thinking about the fan songs. For me, audio (particularly music) is some of the most impactful content in a fandom. Having something to play in the background that expresses the story sticks with me far longer than anything visual. To this day, the songs from the character playlists I made invoke such intense emotions in me that I sometimes have to sit down and just. Listen. Songs created especially *for* the SMP only increase that sense of nostalgia and emotion.

Yes, the fandom has its rough spots (as every fandom does). Yes, many of the creators were not who we thought they were during its peak, and yes there is a lot of controversy and drama.

However, I don’t think that takes away from the Dream SMP as a whole. I think it is one of the most incredible time capsules and, even to this day, is a great fandom to join. Whether or not you were a fan while it was at its peak, I still think it is something that can inspire you, give you endless entertainment, and make you think harder about the nuances in people around you, and improve you as an artist, a consumer, and a human being.

okay. context.

in literature, there's basically this concept that what the story is doing is breaking down and rebuilding the character into something new, whether that's for better or for worse. the inciting incident forces them to move, to stop being stagnant, and it goes from there

the narrative of vsmp did that perfectly for owen. it showed him something new and forced him out of his shell (or, well. coffin) it gave him foils and obstacles and painful, painful juxtaposition to show him exactly what he'd become since losing louis

and he. didn't. change.

or rather, the change he did have came about so little, so late, that even if Owen had the capability to grow, he didn't have the time

It wasn't that he had a positive or negative arc, just that he needed more time to be able to change at all and Oakhurst could never give that to him

the real curse of Oakhurst is that all any of them needed was a little bit more time, but that's for another post

Owen's arc wasn't positive or negative, but it was still tragic

Owen had everything set out for him, just like any other protagonist would. but he said no. he chose to live without ever changing or letting go, and in the end the thing he had been fighting for wouldn't have recognised him.

Owen's story is about corruption and guilt and anger, but it hurts so much more because the creators set it up like it a story with hope

they tricked my little obsessed-with-story-structure brain, broke every preconceived notion I had, and managed to make me, the kid who studies story and knows how every movie or book will end by the first chapter, shocked

because Owen never had a chance, not really

but it was set up like he did

Let me start by saying that all four servers/projects spoken about below are near and dear to my heart, and I don’t wish any ill will towards the creators or the fans involved.

Welcome to the MCYT Metazine! This project will focus on analysis across MCYTblr, with the aim of celebrating the work people have done within the fandom. There's plenty more to come, so stay tuned and give us a follow!

But for now...

OUR INTEREST CHECK IS OPEN!

I’ve mentioned how good Philza is as a supporting character and this is one of the places you really get to see it. Phil is still Wilbur’s father on the qsmp- the last person he should be getting defensive with, which can be taken two ways;

One: Philza is very mature character who is not easily shaken, and even as his son, Wilbur has never seen or is not used to seeing Philza so upset, which in turn is very upsetting to him, (maybe even scary if you want to go further into it). This is the more likely option as they tend to focus on the present in terms of storyline.

Or two: Wilbur is a naturally defensive person who reacts strongly to any sort of implied conflict or threat. For this you also have to consider these types of people typically have some sort of trauma if not other issues like an anxiety disorder or - I don’t know- a poor relationship with parental figures.

Which hits a lot harder when you see how gentle he is with Talulah. He doesn’t even make rules for her; he makes suggestions like ‘maybe we keep armor on outside’, and let me tell you- I am not fully convinced he would’ve done anything about it had she completely ignored him as we have seen other eggs do.

I would also like to point out the fact that Wilbur hates wearing armor, both in qsmp and in previous smps- and what is Phil’s biggest rule? Always wear your armor. The only question left being; does Wilbur hate wearing armor because of issues with Phil growing up, or does Phil have the rule specifically because of Wilbur and some sort of incident that maybe scared him as a parent.

Schlatt is the passionate, intense red to Connor's calm, reserved blue. I feel like this is the most obvious one and no further elaboration is needed...

Connor's initial yellow and purple color motifs can also be interpreted in an interesting way, I think: yellow is often used as a warning, which is kind of funny given Connor's tendency to attack others out of frustration or just for fun. Purple on the other hand often reflects wealth, something that Connor desperately wants to attain.

Ty is a fun one, as his pink motif reflects his relationship with multiple characters - he shares this motif with his mother Angel, but more subtlely, pink is the lighter form of red, which is the color motif of Ty's father figure, Schlatt. Pink is also often viewed as a calming color, and Ty is one of the calmer server members, at least on the outside.

Altrive's green is pretty clear to me, it reflects his technical pacifism, with green frequently being used to represent health and positivity.

Gold is a character I haven't seen enough of yet to fully put my finger on, but I do want to say that I feel that gold representing balance and yellow representing safety and generally friendly behavior seems to reflect him well from what I've seen so far, especially with his love for animals. The balance thing also works with his split-dye heterochromia design for extra points.

(long post)

RESPAWN MECHANICS: 

quick deaths like being killed by a mob in five hits or less/far fall/explosion will make it easier to respawn quickly AKA get back up and walk it off. Those deaths caused the body less prolonged stress/pain and that is why they are easier to recover from.

longer deaths like slowly burning to death/being stabbed like fifty times in order to be killed/getting punched to death/drowning/suffocating/poisoned/withered etc is harder to immediately get back up from and may require some medical care afterwards to be at full health.

kids and animals (if they can respawn as they are generally npcs and have one life) take longer to recover.

if the death comes with physical or mental stress, such as dying alongside a loved one, dying while afraid, dying under torture, dying slowly, or dying repeatedly may cause someone to pass out immediately after respawning due to physical/mental exhaustion. these deaths may also cause scarring, trauma, or long term injuries, it’s a bit of a universal mystery, almost like the chaos in the universe itself decides which deaths cause that, as well as the state of the player themselves.

TOTEMS:

when a totem cracks, it infuses the players heart with a mixture of adrenaline and like, secret lifesaving juice(the totem’s blood). totems can be used one after the other but if you use more than 5 within about 20 minutes, your blood can start to get tainted. more than 10 within 20 minutes? you’re getting close to sepsis. 20 in 20 minutes? you are actively dying of sepsis, which is a slow and lasting death. blood poisoning basically. if you get really intense and start just repeatedly popping totems every second, after about 50 you’re insta-dead, and might even die again upon respawning.

CREATIVE MODE/ADMIN PERMS:

players in creative mode are immortal demigods that can only be struck down by admins (/kill commands), admins can be both mortal or immortal gods. Admins can affect the world around them with commands, and can alter the physics and rules of the world around them. Creatives are demigods with immortality and can only become mortal or vice versa with an admin’s help. (example c!Xisuma of Hermitcraft is a mortal admin, while c!Drista of DSMP is an immortal creative, and c!Callahan of DSMP is an immortal admin)

Admin’s can be trained by past admin’s but any player can technically be one, they just might not be a very powerful one, and people might not join their server. Admin’s can only affect their server, so if they entered another they might be more knowledgable on server mechanics, but cannot access them without hacking or that server admin’s permission. 

If a server is very big and popular, their admin is usually very experienced and powerful and old. That admin may even be able to travel through the void unbothered, thought to be because they are connected to Minecraft’s root code.

MINECRAFT CREATORS:

the creators of Minecraft are dimension hopping, reality bending, incomprehensible gods. they are responsible for general spawning conditions, communicator designs(will come up later), the vanilla Minecraft items, and the very source code of this universe. 

SERVERS AND THE VOID AND THE INTERNET:

servers are kind of like planets, each planet floats in the void, has an atmosphere, etc. but they are more like dimensions in that while you could theoretically physically travel between them, it is much much safer to teleport. and also each server operates with its own rules and physics sometimes. So view server/planets as something like dimensions with dark void in between them that warps time and space. don’t view it visually as the same kind of universe as ours, more like each server is the meat in a sandwich where the bread is the void? so below and above each server is the void, and that void is the same as every other void? like wormholes.

its much easier to just use your communicator to teleport between servers, your ability to do so depends on the admin’s imposed rules for the server.

servers like Hypixel or other multiplayer game servers like it are seen as hub servers where players can meet up. MCC is a sporting event server where people can watch the more famous players compete. 

famous players usually become famous through word of mouth, or posting clips or videos of their collaborations or moments or feats. these videos can be viewed on communicators. streaming doesn’t exist as the void could not permit streaming between servers. but there are big systems on big servers for downloading new videos, and famous players upload their videos on bigger servers.

TIME AND YEARS:

minutes, hours, days, months, and years all operate the same as irl. because irl its been about 11 years since Minecraft was created, I say that its been about 1100 years since the universe was created. servers age will start from the moment of their creation. but most servers will hold true to the date on the communicators expressed for example as 1/1/1143, and every 365 days it is a new year. Unless time is said to have been passed I say in a meta way that each stream/day of filming a video is a day. Some servers can be stuck in time, but this is usually either an admin twisting code illegally, or a glitch. 

COMMUNICATORS:

when a player spawns into a new world or server they spawn in with nothing except clothing and the latest edition of the communicator. it is updated with each new mc update so as of writing this players in new worlds get communicator version 1.20. all communicators usually have the time, world chat, coordinates, light level reader, and depending on the mods in the world or the permissions, and the status of the player as player, admin, or creative, it can have things like a world map, access to code, camera features, etc etc. 

PLAYERS AND HYBRIDS:

players can be born from parents but they can also just kind of, spawn into existence. a lot of player families are found families, but these are treated as close to biological as possible. players can spawn in at any age but most are spawned in as 6-16 year olds. when players spawn in without any player family, they spawn into single-player worlds. but can figure out how to get to other worlds due to being spawned in with a communicator. often the first few years of a player’s life are lonely, so they get very attached to their found families.

the ratio of born/spawned in players is changing every day as more players are having children, but as of around 1100 the ratio is about 40/60, the ratio of non-hybrid to hybrid is about 50/50

hybrids do not have to be vanilla Minecraft mobs, though those were most common in the early years. only in the past couple centuries have demon, angel, and more bizarre hybrids begun to show up, though it is believed most of them are quite old and just remained hidden. the most common hybrids are avian, pet-hybrids like dogs and cats, goat/horse/sheep, and piglin, creeper, or enderman hybrids. hybrids do not necessarily have to be created by procreation, oftentimes they are not, and are simply spawned in. it has been this way since the beginning. 

certain dimension exclusive hybrid players will be born/spawned in their dimensions, but can travel to the Overworld.

THE NETHER AND THE END AND THE OVERWORLD:

the nether has many civilizations that are very very wary of players, however they will usually let hybrids stay with them. if they have a kind community, these players may naturally choose to stay in the nether, but usually their communities outcast them and they are driven to the overworld. to do so they will create a nether portal. the nether is close to the bottom layer of the void.

the end has the endermen civilization, who look after the dragon on each server.  hybrids can usually get by ok in these civilizations, but similarly to the nether they sometimes escape to the overworld. to do so they sneak past the ender dragon and her guards, and spawn in at world spawn. the end is close to the top layer of the void.

WATCHERS:

watchers are the only beings able to traverse the void completely safely. thought to have long ago escaped the outer edges of the end, they now live in the void somewhere. there are no known records of them, just heard about through word of mouth and legends. it is thought they can control chance, luck, and things that not even admins can influence. it is rumored they destroy servers for fun, but those reports have been proven false, it is more likely that they have motives we do not yet know. the legends surrounding them report many pairs of wings, a lot of eyes, and glowing purple magic. 

MAGIC:

like stated previously, depending on the admin’s choices, the very physics of a server can be changed, and so, some servers can be very very technical and some very magic dependent. however magic cannot be brought over onto other servers with some very specific exceptions. if a player is cursed or blessed by a particularly ancient and powerful admin or a creator. if a player is conceived and born from two players on a magical server. and lastly if a player has managed to either hack through to the code of the server, been glitched, or hacked their own player code to allow for it. it is possible for them to be able to use that specific magic even on a server that doesn’t include that possibility in its code. however this can, as you could imagine, cause chaos and/or glitches as the server fails to comprehend what is happening, so admins can add magic-blockers to their server code. 

HACKERS:

hackers are usually ex admins, the most experienced being centuries old. it is important for them to keep their PlayerName hidden as that is one of the easiest way an admin or even creator could track them down, so they usually go by alias’. they frequent anarchy servers mostly, but some occasionally search for easy targets in the hub servers. going after kids is seen as cheap and highly unethical by most hackers. 

THE CANON-ICITY OF PAST LIVES ON OTHER SERVERS:

to clarify this section is referring to situations such as YHS being canon to hc!Grian’s backstory for example, or DSMP being canon to q!Bad’s backstory etc etc. and honestly? whatever the story calls for, but I love me some cross servers backstory, I love me some backstory that includes other servers. 

that being said, sometimes a story on a server will straight up say ‘hey this isn’t a characters backstory actually’ so hell, there are other dimensions where server’s work differently. yeah.

CONCLUSION:

I probably missed a few things as my mcyt experience has been Dantdm, Popularmmos, DSMP, Hermitcraft, Life Series, and now QSMP, and I am only an English speaker.